Which among the following is the oldest joint stock bank in India?
- A.Allahabad Bank
- B.Bank of Baroda
- C.Yes Bank
- D.Punjab National Bank
Correct answer
Explanation
The correct answer is A, Allahabad Bank. It was founded in 1865 and is remembered as the oldest joint stock bank in India, a joint stock bank being one owned by shareholders rather than by a partnership of agency houses. The presidency banks were older but were chartered institutions of the East India Company rather than ordinary joint stock companies.
Option B, Bank of Baroda, was founded in 1908 by Maharaja Sayajirao Gaekwad III of Baroda, more than forty years later. Option C, Yes Bank, belongs to the generation of private banks licensed after the reforms of the 1990s and began business in 2004, so it cannot be the oldest anything. Option D, Punjab National Bank, was registered in 1894 and opened at Lahore; it holds a different distinction, that of the first bank floated with wholly Indian capital and Indian management, and examiners often swap the two claims in the options.
Read the full article: History of Banking in India: Nationalisation, RBI and PYQs
Practice Questions
View allIn which of the following years did the fourteen major Indian scheduled commercial banks get nationalised in India?
- A.1969
- B.1970
- C.1972
- D.1950
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On 19 July 1969 the Government of India issued an ordinance taking over the fourteen largest Indian scheduled commercial banks, those whose deposits stood at ₹50 crore or more.
Read the full explanation →The Reserve Bank of India was fully nationalised and owned by the Government of India in which of the following years?
- A.1947
- B.1948
- C.1949
- D.1950
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The Reserve Bank opened in 1935 as a shareholders' bank with privately held share capital.
Read the full explanation →When was the Indian Rupee de-linked from the Pound Sterling?
- A.1975
- B.1947
- C.1982
- D.1963
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The rupee was tied to the pound sterling from colonial times and stayed pegged to it after independence. In 1975 the link was cut and the rupee was tied instead to a basket of currencies of India's major trading partners, with the Reserve Bank fixing the daily rate.
Read the full explanation →Which commission recommended the establishment of the Reserve Bank of India?
- A.Narasimham Committee
- B.Hilton Young Commission
- C.Chelliah Committee
- D.Sivaraman Committee
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Formally the Royal Commission on Indian Currency and Finance, it reported in 1926 that the control of currency and of credit should not be split between the Government and the Imperial Bank but placed in one central bank.
Read the full explanation →The Imperial Bank of India was renamed the State Bank of India in which year?
- A.1935
- B.1949
- C.1955
- D.1959
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The All India Rural Credit Survey Committee under A. D. Gorwala reported that rural credit needed a bank with branches across the country and in state partnership.
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