BANKING IN INDIA

Banking in India originated in the first decade of 18th century. The first banks were, The General Bank of India, which started in 1786, and Bank of Hindustan, both of which are now defunct. The oldest bank in existence in India is the State Bank of India, which originated in the "The Bank of Bengal" in Calcutta in June 1806. This was one of the three presidency banks, the other two being the Bank of Bombay and the Bank of Madras. The presidency banks were established under charters from the British East India Company. They merged in 1925 to form the Imperial Bank of India, which, upon India's independence, became the State Bank of India. For many years the Presidency banks acted as quasi-central banks, as did their successors. The Reserve Bank of India formally took on the responsibility of regulating the Indian banking sector from 1935. After India's independence in 1947, the Reserve Bank was nationalized and given broader powers.

Early history
The first fully Indian owned bank was the Allahabad Bank, established in 1865. However, at the end of late-18th century, there were hardly any banks in India in the modern sense of the term. The American Civil War stopped the supply of cotton to Lancashire from the Confederate States. Promoters opened banks to finance trading in Indian cotton. With large exposure to speculative ventures, most of the banks opened in India during that period failed. The depositors lost money and lost interest in keeping deposits with banks. Subsequently, banking in India remained the exclusive domain of Europeans for next several decades until the beginning of the 20th century. Foreign banks too started to arrive, particularly in Calcutta, in the 1860s.
The Comptoire d'Escompte de Paris opened a branch in Calcutta in 1860, and another in Bombay in 1862; branches in Madras and Pondichery, then a French colony, followed.