Banking in Chennai :1950s’ banking in George Town

(From left to right) The Madras home of the National Bank of India, the Mercantile Bank of India and Arbuthnot's. Photo: Vintage Vignettes

S Muthaiah The Hindu 22 Dec 2013

Recalling his days as a banker in George Town in the 1950s, A.M.V. Alagappan draws attention to a few banks of his time there that have closed or got new identities.

Banks now missing from the George Town scene are the Pandyan Bank, Eastern Bank, Indo-Commercial Bank, Lloyd’s Bank, National Bank of India and Mercantile Bank of India.

The Pandyan Bank, started by Madurai businessman S.N.K. Sundaram, had its Madras branch on Armenian Street, opposite St. Mary’s Hall. It attained considerable success within a few years through such innovative schemes as providing plastic pouches for savings bank pass-books, a novelty which induced many to open savings bank accounts — with just Rs. 10. More significantly, it pioneered in India an all-women’s branch, establishing one in Madurai in 1947. There were ten women ‘manning’ the branch, including Kamala, Sundaram’s daughter. The Pandyan Bank with its 80 branches was merged with the Canara Bank in 1963, when several of the major banks that had only then recently been nationalised took over many of the smaller regional banks and acquired greater local area spreads, particularly in rural areas. Another such bank that merged with a bigger bank was S.N.N. Sankaralingam Iyer’s Indo-Commercial Bank, founded in 1934, that merged with the Punjab National Bank. The Madras branch of Indo-Commercial was at the Errabalu Chetty Street-Armenian Street corner. Sankaralingam Iyer was the father of K.S. Narayanan, founder of the Sanmar Group.

On Armenian Street, opposite Binny’s, was the London-headquartered Eastern Bank and on Esplanade Road, near Parry’s Corner, was another British bank, Lloyd’s. The Lloyd’s branch was closed down after Independence and the Eastern Bank was taken over by the Chartered Bank in 1957.

The large British banks that slowly changed their identity in phases, retaining bits of their old names in their new avatars, before vanishing altogether, were the Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China, the National Bank of India, and the Mercantile Bank of India. The first-named had its own building at the corner of Esplanade Road and Armenian Street. The National Bank built a handsome Indo-Saracenic building on First Line Beach (now Rajaji Salai), just behind Parry’s, and moved into it in 1915. The Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China became the Chartered Bank, then, after merging with the Standard Bank of South Africa in 1969, the Chartered Bank. The National Bank merged with Grindlay’s Bank on Armenian Street and became the National Grindlay’s in the new building that was a far cry from the dignified Indo-Saracenic building that was a landmark on First Line Beach. Further down the road was the Mercantile Bank of India’s handsome building into which it moved in 1893. The London-headquartered Mercantile Bank, in the city from the 1850s, was taken over by the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC Bank) not so long ago. A neighbouring building was till recently the Indian Bank’s headquarters. On this site was the infamous Arbuthnot bank, whose property its successor institution, the Indian Bank, acquired.

Also no longer on First Line Beach is the Reserve Bank of India which shared space with the Imperial Bank of India in what is now the main branch of the State Bank of India.

In how many of these old banks that remain are there memories of their beginnings or of those they took over?