Shanghai Pudong Development Bank — Local services in Shanghai

The Shanghai Pudong Development Bank building sits on the Bund like a stone giant flexing its shoulders at the Huangpu. Opened in 1923 as the HSBC headquarters, it was at the time the largest bank building east of Suez, because colonial bankers believed Shanghai needed a marble cathedral of finance while most locals were still hauling buckets of water from wells. Its grand dome, Greek columns, and mosaics weren’t built to whisper wealth, they were designed to shout it across the river at anyone who dared to look poor.

After 1949, the revolutionaries marched in and made it the Municipal Government Building, a delicious irony, nothing says “down with capitalism” like running a people’s republic from inside the old imperial money vault. By the 1990s, Shanghai Pudong Development Bank planted its logo on the façade, proving history has a sense of humor. Step inside today and the marble still gleams, the mosaics still tell stories of global trade, and the walls practically drip with the ghosts of compound interest. If you stay quiet long enough, you can almost hear the faint scratching of an HSBC banker tallying his last colonial ledger, and maybe a revolutionary chuckling in the background.

It’s the only bank where your savings account might come with a side of Marxist irony and a whiff of cigar...

This building is perhaps the most impressive one architecturally on the Bund. It’s surely the longest and one of the most massive looking. Done in bro-Classical style rather than the typical Art Deco that surrounds it, this building deserves attention. When it was built, it was the tallest bank in the world. It was the HSBC headquarters until the 1990s. Now it’s owned by the Pudong...

Next door to the Customs House is former HSBC Bank building. Many may not be aware that HSBC stands for the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank. Established in 1864 in Hong Kong and then 1865 in Shanghai it is by far the most important bank in this part of the world and housed in its own heritage building. Interesting side note, HSBC is actually the issuer of actual currency...