Canara Bank India

Canara Bank is an Indian state-owned bank headquartered in Bangalore, Karnataka. It was established in 1906, making it one of the oldest banks in the country. As of December 2011, the bank had a network of 3564 branches and 4000 ATMs spread across India. The bank also has offices abroad in London, Hong Kong, Moscow, Shanghai, Doha, and Dubai. Widely known for customer centricity, Canara Bank was founded in 1906 by Shri Ammembal Subba Rao Pai, a great visionary and philanthropist, at Mangalore, then a small port in Karnataka. The bank was nationalised in 1969. Today, Canara Bank occupies a premier position in the comity of Indian banks with an unbroken record of profits since its inception.

Canara Bank was ranked at 816 in the Forbes Global 2000 list.

History:-

Ammembal Subba Rao Pai, a philanthropist, established the Canara Hindu Permanent Fund in Mangalore, India, on 1 July 1906. The bank changed its name to Canara Bank Limited in 1910 when it incorporated..

In 1958, the Reserve Bank of India ordered Canara Bank to acquire G. Raghumathmul Bank, in Hyderabad. This bank had been established in 1870, and had converted to a limited company in 1925. At the time of the acquisition G. Raghumathmul Bank had five branches.

The Government of India nationalised Canara Bank, along with 13 other major commercial banks of India, on 19 July 1969. In 1976, Canara Bank inaugurated its 1000th branch. In 1985, Canara Bank acquired Lakshmi Commercial Bank in a rescue. This brought Canara Bank some 230 branches in northern India.

In 1996 Canara Bank became the first Indian Bank to get ISO certification for "Total Branch Banking" for its Seshadripuram branch in Bangalore. Canara Bank has now stopped opting for ISO certification of branches.

Overseas subsidiaries, branches and offices:-

Canara Bank established its International Division in 1976. In 1983, Canara Bank opened its first overseas office, a branch in London. Two years later, Canara Bank established a subsidiary in Hong Kong, Indo Hong Kong International Finance. In 2008-9, Canara Bank opened its third foreign operation, this one a branch in Shanghai. Later Canara Bank established a branch each in Leicester and Bahrain, and converted its Hong Kong subsidiary into a branch. It also has a representative office in Sharjah.

Together with State Bank of India, Canara Bank established a joint venture in Moscow, Commercial Bank of India LLC.

Canara Bank provides the general manager and the branch managers for Al Razouki Intl Exchange Co (LLC), which a number of business leaders and Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) established in 1981 int the United Arab Emirates to facilitate remittances to India by tourists and NRIs.

Since 1983, Canara Bank has been responsible for the management of Eastern Exchange Establishment, Doha, Qatar, which Abdul Rahman M.M. Al Muftah had established in 1979.

Subsidiary companies:-

Canfin Homes Limited
Canbank Factors Limited
Canbank Venture Capital Fund Limited
Canbank Computer Services Limited
Canara Bank Securities Limited
Canara Robeco Asset Management Company Limited
Canbank Financial Services Limited
Canara HSBC Oriental Life Insurance Company Limited

Regional rural banks:-

Canara Bank sponsors two regional rural banks (RRB).

South Malabar Gramin Bank – is the largest RRB in India. Its headquarters are at Malappuram and it operates in eight districts in Kerala. It was established in 1976 as a Scheduled Commercial Bank.
Pragathi Gramin Bank has its headquarters at Bellary, Karnataka, and has 405 branches spread over seven districts.
Canara bank is a state level lead bank in Kerala.

Development projects:-

Canara Bank partnered with UNEP to initiate a solar loan program. It was a four-year $7.6 million effort, launched in April 2003, to help accelerate the market for financing solar home systems in southern India.

Major IT initiative:-

Canara Bank had a major IT initiative to network all branches and move them to a single software platform. Canara Bank chose Flexcube from Oracle Financial Services Software as the application. The Bank entered into an agreement with IBM for rolling out flexcube to over 1000 branches as part of Phase I. This phase has just been concluded, with Karaikudi Branch in Tamil Nadu being the 1000th branch to go live. Over 22 million customers are benefiting from this initiative.Now, all the branches of Canara Bank are live on core banking application Flexcube.