Cathay Bank Routing Number - From LA Chinatown to the Pacific Rim

A bank born on Broadway in Chinatown

In 1962, a group of Chinese-American businessmen pooled $1.6 million to open Cathay Bank at 777 North Broadway in the heart of Los Angeles' Chinatown. The neighborhood was then a tight-knit enclave of Cantonese-speaking immigrants - shopkeepers, restaurateurs, and garment workers who were routinely turned away by mainstream banks that didn't understand their businesses or trust their collateral. Cathay was founded to fill that gap, offering bilingual service, culturally informed lending, and the kind of face-to-face relationship banking that immigrant communities depend on.

Six decades later, Cathay General Bancorp - the parent holding company - has grown into the largest Chinese-American bank in the United States, with over $22 billion in assets. The bank operates branches across California, New York, Illinois, New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, Texas, Washington, and Nevada, with international offices in Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Taipei. The routing number 322270259, prefixed with 322 from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, serves all domestic Cathay Bank accounts.

Trade finance along the Pacific Rim

Cathay Bank's competitive advantage lies in the corridor between the United States and Greater China. The bank provides trade finance services - letters of credit, export financing, and foreign exchange - that facilitate billions of dollars in annual commerce between American importers and Chinese manufacturers. A furniture retailer in Los Angeles sourcing from Dongguan, a tech hardware company in San Jose buying components from Shenzhen, a seafood distributor in New York importing from Fujian - these are Cathay's core clients.

The bank's physical presence in Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Taipei gives it direct access to Chinese banking networks and regulatory environments. Cathay participates in cross-border renminbi settlement and maintains correspondent relationships with major Chinese banks, enabling faster and cheaper wire transfers than routing payments through the standard SWIFT correspondent chain. For businesses that move money across the Pacific regularly, routing number 322270259 is the domestic anchor of a payment flow that extends to the other side of the world.

Real estate lending and the Chinese-American wealth engine

Commercial real estate (CRE) lending is the backbone of Cathay Bank's balance sheet. The bank finances shopping centers, apartment complexes, mixed-use developments, and industrial properties across its footprint, with particular concentration in the Chinese-American-owned commercial corridors of Los Angeles' San Gabriel Valley, New York's Flushing neighborhood, and the suburban Chinatowns that have emerged across the country.

Cathay's CRE expertise extends to understanding the specific financial structures common in Chinese-American real estate - family partnerships, multi-generational ownership, and properties that combine residential and commercial use in ways that confuse lenders unfamiliar with the model. This specialization has kept Cathay's CRE default rates below industry averages even through cycles that punished less focused lenders.

Finding your routing number and setting up transfers

Cathay Bank uses routing number 322270259 for all domestic ACH transactions, direct deposits, and wire transfers. The number appears on the bottom left of Cathay checks and in the account details section of the bank's online and mobile banking platforms. For incoming international wires, the SWIFT code is CATHUS6L.

Cathay's digital banking platform supports English, Mandarin, and Cantonese - reflecting the linguistic diversity of its customer base. Business customers can initiate domestic and international wires through the online portal, with international wires typically settling within one to two business days for transfers routed to Greater China.

Beyond a single trade corridor

Cathay Bank built an extraordinary franchise by becoming indispensable to Chinese-American commerce. But as businesses mature and diversify their supply chains beyond China, they often need banking that isn't defined by a single geographic specialization. Slash provides modern business banking - corporate cards with real-time controls, automated expense categorization, and seamless integrations - on a platform built for companies whose financial operations span multiple markets and don't fit neatly into any single corridor.