Canara Bank chronicles a century in hardback

Canara Bank, which turned 100 recently, may count among India’s largest state-run banks with a global business of over $44bn and a listing among top 2,000 companies in the world. But its beginnings were modest — just four employees operating from a rented apartment in Mangalore.

Staring operations in 1906, it was then known as the Canada Hindu Permanent Fund Ltd, and the man who pioneered it was A Subba Rao Pai, an enterprising Saraswat Brahmin and the youngest of four sons of a lawyer in a munsif’s court.

“The bank’s early years were markedly modest,” says The Story of Canara Bank, a Banking Odyssey, a book written by veteran writer M V Kamath to mark 100 years of one of India’s largest commercial banks that was nationalised in 1969.

“Furniture was meagre. The first safe was lent by a director! It had a staff of four — a secretary, a clerk and two bill collectors. The monthly establishment charges amounted to Rs45 ($1 going by today’s exchange rate). Salaries were low.

“As the fund was started in the middle off the rainy season when trade was generally slack and as it took some time for the people to come to know of its existence, it did little business till about the beginning of November 1906.”

But business steadily increased soon, so much so that on some days the Fund was unable to grant all the loans applied for.

“The prospectus of (the) Fund was quickly printed and an enthusiastic Subba Rao personally went to many places in a hackney coach and bullock cart, explaining the benefit to ordinary people and collecting shares as he went along,” says the 499-page book, recalling in minutest detail the company’s growth path.

Within the second year of operations, its deposits exceeded Rs100,000 and advances were a little less than Rs200,000. On the suggestion of a well wisher, the Fund reconstituted itself as the Canara Bank Ltd in 1910, the paid-up capital rising to Rs200,000 within a few years. And advances increased even faster than deposits.

The bank’s double key system came into vogue in 1920, but the bank had to wait for four more years before it decided to go for its first typewriter!

The living conditions in 1937 were such that the salary of an office boy was fixed at Rs8 a month and that of a peon slightly more. An attendant clerk started on a salary of Rs15, a probationary clerk at Rs20, a clerk at Rs25, an accountant at Rs30 and an agent at Rs40.

When India attained independence in 1947, the bank paid a bonus to its staff to commemorate the event.

Deposits touched Rs10m in 1942, deposits had risen to Rs500m in 1962, and in 1968 Canara Bank crossed the one million mark under deposit accounts. After its nationalixation along with 13 other banks in 1969, the bank’s deposits soared to over Rs.2,000 crore in 1980 and over Rs.7,000 crore in 1987. In 2003-04, the Forbes magazine listed it among the top 2,000 firms worldwide.