National Banks in Meiji Japan

The National Banks in Meiji Japan were a system of organization of the Japanese banking system created in the 1870s, shortly after the Meiji Restoration and inspired by the U.S. National Bank Act of the previous decade.

First building of the Dai-Ichi ("First") National Bank in Nihonbashi, Tokyo, photographed across Kaiun Bridge in the late 19th century

Under the system, national banks were individually chartered by the government as banks of issue whose banknotes were all accepted as legal tender. Starting with Dai-Ichi National Bank in 1873, around 150 national banks were thus created, most of which morphed into still-extant Japanese banks via multiple mergers and restructurings. The national banking system itself, however, was short-lived. It was superseded by the newly created Bank of Japan, inspired by European models and established in the early 1880s, and fully phased out in the late 1890s.

Overview

The National Banking Decree of December 1872 was an initiative of leading Meiji-era statesman Ōkubo Toshimichi, who entrusted its drafting to Shibusawa Eiichi, by then a Finance Ministry official. It led to the establishment of four banks between 1873 and 1875. In 1876, the legislation was amended in a way that made the creation of new banks much easier, and more than 150 national banks were created in 1877, 1878 and 1879. The banks were numbered according to the chronological order of their licensing, starting with the First National Bank or Dai-Ichi Bank. The latter was created by Shibusawa, who by then had left the finance ministry and become a businessman, by reorganization of a joint venture co-sponsored one year earlier by the Mitsui family.

The national banks issued identically designed convertible notes, which were effective in funding industry and progressively replaced government notes. The 1876 amendment allowed the banks to make the banknotes virtually non-convertible. These national banknotes imitated the design of American banknotes, although the name of the issuer was different for each.

In 1877, the Satsuma Rebellion forced the government to have recourse to debt monetization that triggered severe inflation. This was controlled by the reduction of government spending and the removal of paper currency from circulation. During the rebellion, an original type of paper money was issued by the rebel leader Saigō Takamori in order to finance his war effort.

In 1881, the first Japanese note to feature a portrait, the Empress Jingū note (神功皇后札), was issued.

The deflationary policies of Matsukata Masayoshi brought an end to the monetary system based on competing national banks of issue. In 1882, Matsukata created the Bank of Japan inspired by European experiences, which rapidly assumed a monopoly on banknote issuance and monetary policy. In 1896, the system was entirely phased out and national banks had to rename itself so that the adjective "national" would disappear from their name. Many of these banks, however, kept their "numbered" name, such as Dai-Ichi Bank, the Fifteenth Bank, Eighteenth Bank to name only a few. The 77 Bank is an rare case of such a bank keeping its original numbered name to this day.

See also

• Bank of issue
• List of banks in Japan