The story
Founded by Ammembal Subba Rao Pai on Jul 1, 1906.1
Mr. Ammembal Subba Rao Pai, a philanthropist, established the Canara Hindu Permanent Fund in Manglore, India, on 01-July-1906. In 1910, the name of the bank was changed to Canara Bank Ltd.
Canara Bank's first acquisition took place in 1961 when it acquired the Bank of Kerala. Founded in September-1944, the Bank of Kerala had three branches at the time of its acquisition on 20-May-1961. The second bank acquired was Seasia Midland Bank (Alleppey), which had been established on 26-July-1930 and had seven branches at the time of its takeover.
In 1958, the Reserve Bank of India ordered Canara Bank to acquire G. Raghumathmul Bank in Hyderabad. This bank was established in 1870 and converted to a limited company in 1925. At the time of the acquisition, G. Raghumathmul Bank had five branches. The merger took effect in 1961. Later that year, Canara Bank acquired Trivandrum Permanent Bank, which was founded on 07-February-1899 and had 14 branches at the time of the merger.
Canara Bank acquired four banks in 1963: the Sree Poornathrayeesa Vilasam Bank of Thrippunithura, Arnad Bank of Tiruchirapalli, Cochin Commercial Bank of Cochin, and Pandyan Bank of Madurai. Sree Poornathrayeesa Vilasam Bank was established on 21-February-1923 and had 14 branches at the time of its acquisition. Arnad Bank was established on 23-December-1942 and had one branch. Cochin Commercial Bank was established on 03-January-1936 and had 13 branches. Pandyan Bank was established in Madurai, Tamil Nadu, by S.N.K. Sundaram on 11-December-1946. It created an all-women's branch at Town Hall Road, Madurai, in 1947, staffed by ten women, one of whom was Kamala Sundaram, the founder's daughter. The merger with Canara Bank took effect on 02-December-1963, at which time Pandyan Bank had 83 branches.
The Union of India nationalised Canara Bank, along with 13 other major commercial banks, on 19-July-1969. Mr. Karkala Pulkeri Janardhan Prabhu (Mr. K P J Prabhu) served as chairman of the bank post-nationalisation. In 1976, Canara Bank inaugurated its 1,000th branch. In 1983, the bank inaugurated their overseas branch in London. In 1985, it acquired Lakshmi Commercial Bank in a rescue. The same year, they commissioned Indo Hong Kong International Finance Ltd. In 1987, the bank launched Canbank Mutual Fund & Canfin Homes. In 1989, the Canbank Venture Capital Fund was started. During the year 1989-90, the bank incorporated their factoring subsidiary Canbank Factors Ltd.
The bank was listed on the stock market on 23-December-2002, following its Initial Public Offering. It traded on major Indian Stock Exchange.
During the years 2007-08, the bank launched insurance and asset management joint ventures.
On 30-August-2019, Union Minister of Finance Mrs. Nirmala Sitharaman announced that Syndicate Bank would be merged with Canara Bank. The proposed merger would create the fourth-largest public sector bank in the country, with a total business of ₹15.20 lakh crore (US$160 billion) and 10,324 branches. After obtaining the requisite approvals, the merger was completed on 01-April-2020, with Syndicate Bank shareholders receiving 158 equity shares in Canara Bank for every 1,000 shares held.
From Wikipedia’s article on Canara Bank, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5