How Hongkongers have relied on loan clubs, pawn shops and underground banks for years

Despite being one of the world’s most well-developed, modern and vibrant financial centres, Hong Kong is also home to long-established informal methods of dealing with money.

These create fascinating underground economies that operate outside the stock exchanges and towering skyscrapers home to many of the city’s international financial institutions.

Many of these local moneylending systems have been in use for centuries, ranging from household loan clubs to the garish, neon-lit pawn shops spotted every few hundred yards in downtown Hong Kong and Kowloon.

The continuing survival of these practices offers a fascinating glimpse into local history, showing how Hongkongers often had to take matters into their own hands when raising money for household purchases or starting businesses.

But other back-channel financial systems such as underground banks are still criticised for enabling illegal activities such as money laundering and the trafficking of drugs, weapons and stolen goods.