The Bank of China is a state-owned Chinese multinational banking and financial services corporation headquartered in Beijing, China. It is one of the "big four" banks in China. As of 31 December 2019, it was the second-largest lender in China overall and ninth-largest bank in the world by market capitalization value, and it is considered a systemically important bank by the Financial Stability Board. As of 2026, it was the fourth-largest bank in the world in terms of total assets, ranked after the other three Chinese banks. The Bank of China was formed in 1912 by renaming the Qing dynasty's Da-Qing Bank under the newly established Republican government. Until 1942, it issued banknotes on behalf of the government as one of the "Big Four" banks of the period, together with the Bank of Communications, Central Bank of China, and Farmers Bank of China. Following the Chinese Communist Revolution in 1949, most of its operations were absorbed into the People's Bank of China; its core operations moved to and continued activity in Taiwan, where it renamed itself International Commercial Bank of China upon privatization in 1971. Wikipedia