Banking is an old as civilization. The practice of money lending, the predecessor of banking has been practiced in india from time immemorial. During the mughal period, the indigenous bankers were faintly prominent in financing the trade and use of instrument for trade. The first bank in india, through conservative was established in1786. From 1786 until today the journey of Indian banking system can be segregated into 3 distinct phase. They are mentioned below,
• Early phase from 1786 to1969 of Indian banks
• Nationalization of Indian banking sector reforms
• New phase of Indian banking system with the advent of Indian financial and banking sector reforms.
To make this more explanatory, the scenario can be pre fixed as phase 1, phase 2, phase 3.
Phase – 1 (1789-1969)
The general bank of India was set up in the year 1786. Next come the Bank of Hindustan and Bank of Bengal. The East India company established Bank of Bengal(1809) Bank of Bombay(1840) and Bank of Madras(1843) as independent units and called it presidency Banks. These three amalgamated in 1920 and Imperial Bank of India was established.
In 1865, Allahabad Bank was established and first time exclusively by Indian, Punjab National Bank Ltd. Was set up in 1894 with headquarters at Lahore. Between 1906 and 1913 Bank of India, Central Bank of India, Bank of Baroda, Canara Bank, Indian Bank and Bank of Mysore were set up. Reserve Bank Of India come up in 1935.
During the first phases the growth was very show and bank experienced periodic failure between 1913 and 1948. The govt. of India came up with Banking companies Act, 1949 as per amending Act 1965. Reserve Bank of India was vested with extensive over the supervision of banking in India as central banking activity.
SECOND PHASE
Government took major step in this Indian, banking sector reforms after independence in 1955, it nationalized imperial bank of India with extensive banking facilities on a large scale