| Formerly | Bank of Calcutta |
|---|---|
| Industry | Banking,financial services |
| Founded | 2 June 1806; 218 years ago (1806-06-02) |
| Defunct | 27 January 1921; 104 years ago (1921-01-27) |
| Fate | Merged withBank of Bombay andBank of Madras |
| Successor | Imperial Bank of India |
| Headquarters | Calcutta,Bengal Presidency , |
Area served | British India |
TheBank of Calcutta (a precursor to the presentState Bank of India) was founded on 2 June 1806, mainly to fund GeneralArthur Wellesley's wars againstTipu Sultan and theMarathas. It was thetenth oldest bank in India and was renamedBank of Bengal on 2 January 1809.
The bank opened branches atRangoon (1861),Patna (1862),Mirzapur (1862), andBenares (1862). When it became known that the bank intended to open a branch at Dacca, negotiations began that resulted in Bank of Bengal in 1862 amalgamatingThe Dacca Bank (1846).[1] A branch atCawnpore followed.
Among the bank's renowned customers were scholar and politicianDadabhai Naoroji, scientistJagadish Chandra Bose, India's first President Rajendra Prasad, Nobel laureateRabindranath Tagore, and educationalistIshwar Chandra Vidyasagar.[2]
The bank was risk averse and would not lend for more than three months, leading to local businessmen, both British and Indian, launching private banks, many of which failed. The most storied bank failure wasThe Union Bank (1828) founded byDwarakanath Tagore in partnership with British companies.[3]
The Bank of Calcutta, and the two other Presidency banks – theBank of Bombay and theBank of Madras – amalgamated on 27 January 1921. The reorganized banking entity assumed the nameImperial Bank of India.[4] TheReserve Bank of India, which is the central banking organization of India, in the year 1955, acquired a controlling interest in the Imperial Bank of India and the Imperial Bank of India was renamed on 30 April 1955 as the State Bank of India.
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