Yokohama Specie Bank / 横滨正金银行

Yokohama Specie Bank is the semi-official Japanese bank at the center of 168. 银与信：一部日本劳工移民的跨洋汇款史’s remittance history. The episode says the bank opened a Honolulu branch in 1892, initially inside the Japanese consulate, and became central once migrant savings and cross-ocean remittances outgrew ministry-level handling.

The bank matters because it turns Japanese Labor Migration Remittances / 日本劳工移民汇款 into infrastructure. It connects overseas wages, foreign exchange, consular administration, family support, and Meiji state-building. The source frames the bank as private in form but deeply tied to state modernization, overseas expansion, and the State-Mediated Remittance System / 国家中介汇款体系.

Key Claims

• The bank helped handle forced savings, remittances, and foreign-exchange settlement tied to Japanese overseas labor.
• Its Honolulu branch being housed in the consulate at first signals the blurred line between banking service and state governance.
• The bank made migrant remittances more legible to the Japanese state than more decentralized private courier systems did.

Connections

• Japan and Hawaii / 夏威夷 — sending country and early branch/destination setting.
• Japanese Labor Migration Remittances / 日本劳工移民汇款 and State-Mediated Remittance System / 国家中介汇款体系 — main source concepts.
• Migrant Family Remittance Obligation / 移民家庭汇款义务 — family pressure that official and banking channels helped enforce.
• Qiaopi Remittance Networks — contrast case based on private trust networks rather than a semi-official bank.
• Cross-Border Fund Transfer Risk — modern adjacent cross-border money-flow concept.