State Bank of India

State Bank of India is the largest state-owned banking and financial services company in India. The bank traces its ancestry to British India, through the Imperial Bank of India, to the founding in 1806 of the Bank of Calcutta, making it the oldest commercial bank in the Indian Subcontinent. Bank of Madras merged into the other two presidency banks, Bank of Calcutta and Bank of Bombay to form Imperial Bank of India, which in turn became State Bank of India. The government of India nationalized the Imperial Bank of India in 1955, with the Reserve Bank of India taking a 60% stake, and renamed it the State Bank of India. In 2008, the government took over the stake held by the Reserve Bank of India.

Brief History
The State Bank of India was founded by Sorabji Pochkhanwala. The roots of the State Bank of India rest in the first decade of 19th century, when the Bank of Calcutta, later renamed the Bank of Bengal, was established on 2 June 1806. The Bank of Bengal and two other Presidency banks, namely, the Bank of Bombay (incorporated on 15 April 1840) and the Bank of Madras (incorporated on 1 July 1843). All three Presidency banks were incorporated as joint stock companies, and were the result of the royal charters. These three banks received the exclusive right to issue paper currency in 1861 with the Paper Currency Act, a right they retained until the formation of the Reserve Bank of India. The Presidency banks amalgamated on 27 January 1921, and the reorganized banking entity took as its name: Imperial Bank of India. The Imperial Bank of India remained a joint stock company.

Pursuant to the provisions of the State Bank of India Act (1955), the Reserve Bank of India, which is India's central bank, acquired a controlling interest in the Imperial Bank of India. On 30 April 1955, the Imperial Bank of India became the State Bank of India. The government of India recently acquired the Reserve Bank of India's stake in SBI so as to remove any conflict of interest because the RBI is the country's banking regulatory authority.

In 1959, the government passed the State Bank of India (Subsidiary Banks) Act, enabling the State Bank of India to take over eight former state-associated banks as its subsidiaries. On 13 September 2008, the State Bank of Saurashtra, one of its associate banks, merged with the State Bank of India.