Oriental Bank of Commerce

Its earliest date of incorporation, per the Registrar of Companies is 1901. Rai Bahadur Lala Sohan Lal, the first Chairman of the Bank, founded OBC in 1943 in Lahore. Within four years of its coming into existence, OBC had to face Partition. The bank had to close down its branches in the newly formed Pakistan and shift its registered office from Lahore to Amritsar. Lala Karam Chand Thapar, the then Chairman of the Bank, in a unique gesture honoured the commitments made to the depositors from Pakistan and paid every rupee to its departing customers.

The Bank has witnessed many ups and downs since its establishment. The period of 1970–76 is said to be the most challenging phase in the history of the Bank. At one time, profit plummeted to ₹ 175; that prompted the owner of the bank, the Thapar Group, to sell / close the bank. Then employees and leaders of the Bank came forward to rescue the Bank. The owners were moved and had to change their decision to selling the bank and in turn, they decided to improve the position of the bank with the active cooperation and support of all the employees. Their efforts bore fruits and performance of the bank improved significantly. This was the turning point in the history of the bank.

The bank was nationalised on April 15 April 1980. At that time, OBC ranked 19th among the 20 nationalised banks.

In 1997, OBC acquired Bari Doab Bank and Punjab Cooperative Bank. The acquisition of these two banks brought with it no additional branches.

The bank has previously issued and subscribed to 12,80,000 shares, each valued at Rs 10 in 1993. Subsequently, it has allotted shares to Indian financial institutions and mutual funds at a premium. Additionally, 480,00,000 shares have been allotted to the Indian public at the same premium rate. Furthermore, 23,80,000 shares have been allocated to employees. In 1993, OBC became the first nationalized bank to tap the capital market for raising funds.

The bank has progressed on several fronts, crossing the business mix mark of₹ 2,37,000 crore as of March 31, 2010, making it the seventh-largest public sector Bank in India.

On August 14, 2004, OBC amalgamated with Global Trust Bank (GTB). GTB was a leading private sector bank in India that was associated with various financial discrepancies, leading to a moratorium being imposed by the RBI shortly before it merged with OBC. The acquisition brought with it 103 branches, which increased OBC's branch total to 1092. As per the March 2018–2019 annual report, it has 2390 branches and 2625 ATM's pan India.

Amalgamation

On 30 August 2019, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced that the Oriental Bank of Commerce and United Bank of India (UBI) would be merged with Punjab National Bank (PNB). The proposed merger would make PNB the second largest public sector bank in the country with assets of ₹17.95 lakh crore (US$190 billion) and 11,437 branches. MD and CEO of UBI, Ashok Kumar Pradhan, stated that the merged entity would begin functioning from 1 April 2020. The Union Cabinet approved the merger on 4 March 2020. PNB announced that its board had approved the merger ratios the next day. Shareholders of OBC and UBI would receive 1,150 shares and 121 shares of PNB, respectively, for every 1,000 shares they hold. The merge came into effect since 1 April 2020. Post merger, PNB has become the second largest public sector bank in India.