Chin Sophonpanich ( th, ชิน โสภณพนิช; ; 10 November 1910 – 4 January 1988) was a Thai entrepreneur who founded

Bangkok Bank Bangkok Bank Public Company Limited ( th, ธนาคารกรุงเทพ, RTGS: Thanakhan Krung Thep) is one of the largest commercial banks in Thailand. Its branch network includes over 1,165 branches, As of September 2018 within Thail ...

and

Bangkok Insurance The Bangkok Insurance Public Company Limited is a Thai insurance company based in Bangkok. The company is one of the leading insurance companies in the country. History Bangkok Insurance PCL. was established on 15 April 1947 as Asia Insurance ...

Biography

Chin was born in Wat Sai quarter in

Thonburi __NOTOC__ Thonburi ( th, ธนบุรี) is an area of modern Bangkok. During the era of the Kingdom of Ayutthaya, its location on the right (west) bank at the mouth of the Chao Phraya River had made it an important garrison town, which i ...

Province (currently Chom Thong District) to a

Thai Chinese Thai Chinese (also known as Chinese Thais, Sino-Thais), Thais of Chinese origin ( th, ชาวไทยเชื้อสายจีน; ''exonym and also domestically''), endonym Thai people ( th, ชาวไทย), are Chinese descenda ...

family. His father was a Chinese immigrant from Chaoyang, Shantou,

Guangdong Guangdong (, ), alternatively romanized as Canton or Kwangtung, is a coastal province in South China on the north shore of the South China Sea. The capital of the province is Guangzhou. With a population of 126.01 million (as of 2020) ...

, China who worked at a sawmill, while his mother was a local-born

. At the age of five years, Chin was sent back to China for education, and upon returning to Thailand at 17, he took up his first job as a manual labourer. In 1944, Chin founded Bangkok Bank, which started with only two shophouses. The bank later expanded and diversified into

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta i ...

. Chin lived in Hong Kong from 1957 on, when Thailand came under the rule of

Sarit Thanarat Field Marshal Sarit Thanarat (also spelt ''Dhanarajata''; th, สฤษดิ์ ธนะรัชต์, ; 16 June 1908 – 8 December 1963) was a Thai general who staged a coup in 1957, replacing Plaek Phibunsongkhram as Thailand's prime m ...

, after he fell out of favour with the former dictator. By 1972, the bank was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Chatri Sophonpanich served as president of Bangkok Bank from 1980 to 1992, and his son, Chartsiri Sophonpanich, has been president since 1994. Rabin Sophonpanich (also known as Robin Chan) has since relocated to

with his family. He had two wives. With his first wife, Lau Kwei-ying, he had two sons, Rabin Sophonpanich and Chatri Sophonpanich. With his second wife, Boonsri, he had seven children, including Chote Sophonpanich and the

Khunying Honorifics are a class of words or grammatical morphemes that encode a wide variety of social relationships between interlocutors or between interlocutors and referents.Foley, William. ''Anthropological Linguistics: An Introduction''. Oxford: Blac ...

Chodchoi Sophonpanich (). Bernard Chan (a.k.a. Charnwut Sophonpanich) later became a local legislator and its Executive Council member. Chin's daughter-in-law, the

Kalaya Sophonpanich, wife of Chote Sophonpanich, was the Thai Democrat Party's Minister of Science and Technology. On 23 February 2009, she presided over the opening ceremony of the 2008 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Biomimetics, ROBIO 2008, held in Bangkok.2008 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Biomimetics
ait.asia. Accessed 20 April 2022. Chin Sophonpanich died in 1988, aged 77, in his native

Bangkok Bangkok, officially known in Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon and colloquially as Krung Thep, is the capital and most populous city of Thailand. The city occupies in the Chao Phraya River delta in central Thailand and has an estimated populati ...

References

Sources

*''The Encyclopedia of the Chinese Overseas'', page 223, "The Rise of Bangkok Bank", Michael R.J. Vatikiotis,

Harvard University Press Harvard University Press (HUP) is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. After the retir ...

, (). {{DEFAULTSORT:Sophonpanich, Chin Chin Sophonpanich Chin Sophonpanich Chin Sophonpanich Chin Sophonpanich Chin Sophonpanich Chin Sophonpanich 1910 births 1988 deaths