Kwang Pu Chen (; 1880 – July 1976) was a Shanghai-based Chinese banker and State Councillor. He was the founder of the first modern Chinese savings bank, the Shanghai Commercial and Savings Bank, the Shanghai Commercial Bank, a travel agency, as well as the China Assurance Corporation Ltd. He was one of China's most successful entrepreneurs in the twentieth century, particularly influential in the financial and business world of Shanghai. He played a key role in negotiating financial aid from the United States in 1937-1940, working with Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau. Linsun Cheng, in his Banking in Modern China: Entrepreneurs, Professional Managers, and the Development of Chinese, says, "It is almost impossible to describe any significant innovation in the history of modern Chinese banks without mentioning K. P. Chen's name." Early life In 1880, K. P. Chen was born in Dantu, Jiangsu province into a family with little education. He caught the attention of compradores of a foreign firm who decided to sponsor his education in America. He graduated in 1909 with a BSc. degree from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. After graduation, as part of the sponsorship agreement, he worked as an intern in an American bank for a year. He then returned to China where he joined the Nanyang Quanyehui or the Nanjing South Seas Exhibition, a China-hosted international exposition that showcased to the world both China’s modernization and cultural heritage. Career The Jiangsu Bank K. P. Chen began his China banking career in 1913, when he joined a provincial government bank, the Kiangsu Provincial Bank, as its General Manager. There, he introduced something new nearly every day, believing innovation necessary for success. He broke with tradition and moved the bank's headquarters from Jiangsu to the banking capital of Shanghai, made loans on credit of goods rather than personal credit and invited Western accountants to regularly audit the bank's balance books. The bank established warehouses for its commodities lending operations, the first to do so in China. He did all this in just a year, after which he was forced to resign when he refused to disclose the names of the bank's customers to a local warlord. The Shanghai Commercial & Savings Bank (The Shanghai Bank) In Shanghai in June 1915, K. P. Chen, together with some others including Chinese Red Cross President Zhuang Dezhi, founded the Shanghai Commercial and Savings Bank. Chen