Syndicate Bank

Syndicate Bank was one of the oldest and major commercial banks of India. It was founded by Upendra Ananth Pai, T. M. A. Pai and Vaman Srinivas Kudva. At the time of its establishment, the bank was known as Canara Industrial and Banking Syndicate Limited. The bank, along with 13 major commercial banks of India, was nationalised on 19 July 1969, by the government of India. It was headquartered in the university town of Manipal, India. On 1 April 2020, the bank was merged into Canara Bank. Syndicate Bank was founded in 1925 in Manipal, Udupi, Princely State of Mysore. The promoters came from a lower-middle-class background and aimed to improve the socioeconomic status of the region. It was the only Indian bank with its headquarter in a rural area. The bank provided employment opportunities to the educated members of the local community. It had an initial paid-up capital of . It was unlike other banks which primarily financed trade and industries in urban areas. So as a new bank, Syndicate Bank decided to exploit the untapped small and medium enterprise and the agriculture sector. Thus, Syndicate Bank was focussed on grassroot banking since the beginning. In 1928, Syndicate Bank started the Pigmy Deposit Scheme. Under this scheme, banking agents travel to the doorstep of farmers and shopkeepers at set intervals to collect deposits. By 1960, 21% of the bank's net deposits came from Pigmy Deposits. Its unconventional practices had been criticised by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). Syndicate Bank used to encourage its employees to work as Pigmy Deposit agents, during their spare time. In 1962, RBI barred it from using its employees as bank agents. In 1950, the share of Syndicate Bank in the banking business was negligible. In 1960, it rose to 1% and to 4% in 1975. In 1968, 32% of its branches were in rural areas, whereas only 22% of branches of the entire banking system were rural. Its loans to the agriculture and small enterprises sector constituted 30% of its total loans, for the other banks it was less than 8%.