Punjab National Bank celebrates its foundation day on 12 April, Read amazing facts about PNB

Punjab National Bank (PNB) is an Indian public sector bank based in New Delhi. The bank was founded in May 1894 and is the third largest public sector bank in India in terms of its business volumes and second largest in terms of its network. PNB celebrates its foundation day on 12 April and on this special occasion let’s have a look at the amazing facts of PNB.

Facts about PNB

#1) PNB was registered on 19 May 1894 under the Indian Companies Act, with its office in Anarkali Bazaar, in pre-independent India (present-day Pakistan).

#2) PNB’s founders included several leaders of the Swadeshi movement such as Dyal Singh Majithia and Lala Harkishen Lal, Lala Lalchand, Kali Prosanna Roy, E. C. Jessawala, Prabhu Dayal, Bakshi Jaishi Ram, and Lala Dholan Dass. Lala Lajpat Rai was actively associated with the management of the Bank in its early years. The board first met on 23 May 1894. The bank opened for business on 12 April 1895 in Lahore.

#3) PNB is the first Indian bank to have been started solely with Indian capital that survives to the present earlier Oudh Commercial Bank was established in 1881, but failed in 1958.

#4) Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Indira Gandhi and the Jalianwala Bagh Committee have held PNB accounts.

#5) At the Partition of India and the creation of Pakistan, PNB lost its premises in Lahore, but continued to operate in Pakistan. Partition forced PNB to close 92 offices in West Pakistan, one-third of its total number of branches, and which held 40% of the total deposits. PNB still maintained a few caretaker branches. On 31 March 1947, even before Partition, PNB had decided to leave Lahore and transfer its registered office to India; it received permission from the Lahore High Court on 20 June 1947, at which time it established a new head office at Under Hill Road, Civil Lines in New Delhi. Lala Yodh Raj was the Chairman of the Bank.

#6) After the Indo-Pak war of 1965, the government of Pakistan seized all the offices in Pakistan of Indian banks in September 1965. PNB also had one or more branches in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh).

#7) The government of India (GOI) nationalised PNB and 13 other major commercial banks, on 19 July 1969. In 1976 or 1978, PNB opened a branch in London. Some ten years later, in 1986, the Reserve Bank of India required PNB to transfer its London branch to State Bank of India after the branch was involved in a fraud scandal.

Mergers and acquisitions

Shareholding

PNB Subsidiaries

1. PNB Housing Finance Limited (32.52%)
2. PNB MetLife India Insurance Company (32%)
3. Canara HSBC OBC Life Insurance Co. Ltd (23%)
4. India SME Asset Reconstruction Co. Ltd. (20.90%)
5. PNB Cards and Services Ltd (100%)
6. PNB Insurance Broking Services Ltd (non functional under winding up)
7. PNB Investment Services Ltd (100%)
8. PNB Gilts Ltd (74.07%)
9. PNB International Ltd UK (100%)
10. Druk PNB Bank Ltd Bhutan (51%)
11. JSC Tengri Bank Kazakhstan (41.64%)
12. Everest Bank Ltd Nepal (20.03%)
13. sarva Haryana Gramin Bank (35%)
14. Himachal Gramin Bank (35%)
15. Punjab Gramin Bank (35%)
16. Prathma UP Gramin Bank (35%)
17. Dakshin Bihar Gramin Bank (35%)
18. Bangiya Gramin Vikash Bank(35%)
19. Assam Gramin Vikas Bank (35%)
20. Tripura Gramin Bank (35%)
21. Manipur Rural Bank (35%)