Well, managed to bugger a response into another thread while phonefag.
Anyway - the symbolism. We are dealing with China, not the West - so…
https:// www.yourchineseastrology.com/five-elements.htm
Human elements (versus Divine elements… more on that later).
Metal
Water
Wood
Fire
Earth
But what we are most interested in is the Taoist elements that compose the Eight Trigrams (sixty-four palms! … actually, the 64 hexagrams of divination exist… but that's another one). The Bagua.
The oldest form of the Taijitu is the spiral denoted at the center of this sculpture. That is the cycling of Yin and Yang as Yang flows forth into Yin from the Divine Female.
https:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagua
What we are actually interested in, however, is the symbolism in the sculpture, above. To understand this, we must understand Taoist Alchemy. Taoist Alchemy is the process of using the human elements to create the divine elements - most notably the one of Heaven - or Pure Yang. This is the essence or impetus of creation. Within Taoist philosophy, all other elements are action/reaction. Only the divine element can truly create something new.
What is depicted, therefor, is the Eight Trigrams Furnace. The 'chalice' is Earth. The fire is… fire. The swirl in the center is the process of transmuting the elements in order until the divine element is reached - the Golden Elixir, the Golden Flower, Gold Pill… etc.
http:// taoistiching.org/trigrams.html
Taken in the context of a bank, the symbolism should be rather obvious.
Aside from that, there is some Four Symbols symbolism. The South - "Fire" - is the Vermilion Bird; Suzaku in Japanese. The Dragons and the flames above represent the forces chasing the fleeting moment of creation. They seem unrelated to the Four Symbols. It is also possible that the bird is a FengHuang - which would mean it is associated with the Emperess. Probably makes a bit more sense, given the lack of the other celestial symbols.
http:// www.ancient-origins.net/myths-legends-asia/four-mythological-symbols-china-001792
http:// www.thesecretofthegoldenflower.com/summary.html