Penang heritage: Ban Hin Lee Bank (BHL Bank): 73rd anniversary

I've noticed that of late, there have been quite a number of visits to my blog from people who had been doing a Google search on Ban Hin Lee Bank or BHL Bank. So, today being the 73rd anniversary of the incorporation of this bank - despite its obvious non-existence - let me show you a reproduction of the bank's Certificate of Registration as well as an aerial photograph of the bank's building in George Town.

I just want to say that I had the actual certificate in my hands when I was part of the BHL Bank's publication committee that produced its 60th anniversary book in 1995.

In 1985, the bank was supposed to celebrate its 50th anniversary but a tragedy occurred in October that year with the untimely death of Jimmy Yeap Leong Aun, one of the bank's directors. All thoughts of a celebration evaporated when we heard the tragic news. Earlier in the year, I had been tasked with producing the bank's golden anniversary publication. That also went out the window following Jimmy Yeap's demise. So when the opportunity arose again in 1995, I readily volunteered as part of the new publication team. It was a job unfinished and I really wanted to finish it.

This is the aerial photograph of the bank's building and its surrounds. It was used for the book's inside front and back covers. It's not clearly seen from the photo but the building is a trapezoid with the back of the building being wider than the front. According to fengshui principles, this is supposed to be good because it represents money flowing in and cannot get out. That's what banks are about: keeping people's money safe!

Although the Ban Hin Lee Bank Ltd was officially incorporated in 1935, it actually started off as a trading venture in 1918 by Yeap Chor Ee. He called his business Ban Hin Lee. I find it hard to find a direct and adequate English language translation but I was told by some old staff - they always talked about the bank with pride - in the 1980's that Ban Hin Lee means "ten thousand prosperities." Would this meaning be closer than the "ten thousand flourishing profits" that I see mentioned elsewhere in magazines? Yeap traded in sugar, buying this commodity from various estates in Province Wellesley and then selling it at the Prangin Market. This sugar venture profited him handsomely. By the early 1900s, his business interests included coconut oil, rubber, rice, tapioca and tin-mining trading and extended from Penang to Batavia, Rangoon and Singapore.

This recognisable building at the junction of Beach Street and China Street Ghaut was completed in 1936 and the staff moved into it a year later. The building was designed by Ung Ban Hoe who was the first Chinese architect in Penang, working for the architectural firm of Stark & McNeill. The grand classical front and thick walls gave the bank its solid appearance. The bank's assistant manager at that time, Teoh Beng Cheang, once told me that during the Second World War when the Japanese were raining bombs on George Town, all the staff hid in the strong room. Everyone emerged unscathed, he remembered.

Click here for Ban Hin Lee Bank would be 72 years old today.
Click here for China Street Ghaut Penang.
Click here for Ban Hin Lee Bank RC reunion.
Click here for BHLB relics (1).