Submitted by:
Vineet Kumar Sarawagi ,
Vinita Singh

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BANK
Bank is a financial institution where you can deposit your money. It has influenced economies and politics for centuries. It provides a system for easily transferring money from one person or business to another. Using banks and the many services they offer, saves an incredible amount of time, and ensures that our funds "pass hands" in a legal and structured manner. Many other financial activities were added over time. For example banks are important players in financial markets and offer financial services such as investment funds. The first state deposit bank, Banco di San Giorgio (Bank of St. George), was founded in 1407 at Genoa, Italy. In some countries such as Germany, banks are the primary owners of industrial corporations while in other countries such as the United States banks are prohibited from owning non-financial companies. In Japan, banks are usually the nexus of a cross-share holding entity known as the zaibatsu. In France, bancassurance is prevalent, as most banks offer insurance services (and now real estate services) to their clients. Origin of the word The name bank derives from the Italian word banco "desk/bench", used during the Renaissance by Florentine bankers, who used to make their transactions above a desk covered by a green tablecloth. However, there are traces of banking activity even in ancient times.
GLOBAL OVERVIEW
The first banks were probably the religious temples of the ancient world, and were probably established sometime during the third millennium B.C. Deposits initially consisted of grain and later other goods including cattle, agricultural implements, and eventually precious metals such as gold, in the form of easy-to-carry compressed plates. Temples and palaces were the safest places to store gold. Ancient Rome perfected the administrative aspect of banking and saw greater regulation of financial institutions and financial practices. Charging interest on loans and paying interest on deposits became more highly developed and competitive.
Beginning around 1100s, the need to transfer large sums of money to finance the Crusades stimulated the re-emergence of banking in Western Europe. In 1156, in Genoa, occurred the earliest known foreign exchange contract. The accompanying growth of Italian banking in France was the start of the Lombard moneychangers in Europe, who moved from city to city along the busy pilgrim routes important for trade. After 1400, political forces turned against the methods of the Italian free enterprise bankers. In 1401, King Martin I of Aragon expelled them. In 1403, Henry IV of England prohibited them from taking profits in any way in his kingdom. In 1409, Flanders imprisoned and then expelled Genoese bankers. In 1410, all Italian merchants were expelled from Paris. In 1401, the Bank of Barcelona was founded. In 1407, the Bank of
Saint George was founded in Genoa. Modern Western economic and financial history is usually traced back to the coffee houses of London. The London Royal Exchange was established in 1565. At that time moneychangers were already called bankers, though the term "bank" usually referred to their offices, and did not carry the meaning it does today. There was also a hierarchical order among professionals; at the top were the bankers who did business with heads of state, next were the city exchanges, and at the bottom were the pawn shops or "Lombard's‖. Some European cities today have a Lombard street where the pawn shop was located. After the siege of Antwerp, trade moved to Amsterdam. In 1609 the Amsterdamsche Wisselband (Amsterdam Exchange Bank) was founded which made Amsterdam the financial centre of the world until the Industrial Revolution. In the 1970s, a number of smaller crashes tied to the policies put in place following the depression, resulted in deregulation and privatization of government-owned enterprises in the 1980s, indicating that governments of industrial countries around the world found private-sector solutions to problems of economic growth and development preferable to state-operated, semi-socialist programs. This spurred a trend that was already prevalent in the business sector, large companies becoming global and dealing with customers, suppliers, manufacturing, and information centers all over the world. Global banking and capital market services proliferated during the 1980s and 1990s as a result of a great increase in demand from companies, governments, and financial institutions, but also because financial market conditions were buoyant. Interest rates in the United States declined from about 15% for two-year U.S. Growth rate would have been lower, in the last twenty years, were it not for the profound effects of the internationalization of financial markets especially U.S. Foreign investments, particularly from Japan, who not only provided the funds to corporations in the U.S., but also helped finance the federal government; thus, transforming the U.S. stock market by far into the largest in the world.
CURRENT SCENARIO:
Banking Industry has revolutionized the transaction and financial services system worldwide. Through the development in technology banking services has been availed to the customers at all times, even after the normal banking hours, on a 24x7 basis. Banking Industry services is nothing but the access of most of the banking related services (such as verification of account details, going with the transactions, etc.). In today‘s world, progress of online services is available to all customers of the concerned bank and can be accessed at any point of time and from anywhere provided the place is equipped with the Internet facility. Now-a-days, almost all the banks all over the world, especially the multinational ones, provide their customers with Online Banking facility.
When consumers turn cautious in tough times, entrepreneurs have to think out-of-the-box to get people to loosen their purse strings. Referring to the reluctance of banks to lend despite higher liquidity, this was a global phenomenon and mere monetary policy could not push banks on its strength to lend. Banks are more than willing to lend to companies whose financial position is good. The problem is that banks are reluctant to lend to companies with lower credit worthiness. We need to get banks to finance even middle level companies. The 2008/2009 recession is seeing private consumption fall for the first time in nearly 20 years.
This indicates the depth and severity of the current recession. With consumer confidence so low, recovery will take a long time. Consumers in the U.S. have been hard hit by the current recession, with the value of their houses dropping and their pension savings decimated on the stock market.
INDIAN SCENARIO
For any country (particularly for a growing economy), sound and effective banking system is essential, not only to keep money but to have a healthy economy. Thus banking system of India should not only be hassle free but it should be able to meet new challenges posed by the technology and any other external and internal factors. For the past three decades India's banking system has several outstanding achievements to its credit. The most striking is its extensive reach. It is no longer confined to only metropolitans or cosmopolitans in India. In fact, Indian banking system has reached even to the remote corners of the country. This is one of the main reasons of India's growth process.
EARLY DEVELOPMENT:
Modern banking in India is said to be developed during the British era. In the first half of the 19th century, the British East India Company established three banks – the Bank of Bengal in 1809, the Bank of Bombay in 1840 and the Bank of Madras in 1843. But in the course of time these three banks were amalgamated to a new bank called Imperial Bank, which started as private shareholders banks, with mostly Europeans shareholders. Subsequently, banking in India remained the exclusive domain of Europeans for next several decades until the beginning of the 20th century. Later Imperial bank was taken over by the State Bank of India in 1955. Allahabad Bank was the first fully Indian owned bank. The Reserve Bank of India was established in 1935 followed by other banks like Punjab National Bank, Bank of India, Canara Bank and Indian Bank. Indian merchants in Calcutta established the Union Bank in 1839, but it failed in 1848 as a
consequence of the economic crisis of 1848-49. The Allahabad Bank, established in 1865 and still functioning today, is the oldest Joint Stock bank in India.
During the first phase the growth was very slow and banks also experienced periodic failures between 1913 and 1948. There were approximately 1100 banks, mostly small. To streamline the functioning and activities of commercial banks, the Government of India came up with The Banking Companies Act, 1949 which was later changed to Banking Regulation Act 1949 as per amending Act of 1965 (Act No. 23 of 1965). Reserve Bank of India was vested with extensive powers for the supervision of banking in India as the Central Banking Authority. During those day‘s public has lesser confidence in the banks. As an aftermath deposit mobilization was slow. Abreast of it the savings bank facility provided by the Postal department was comparatively safer. Moreover, funds were largely given to traders. At least 94 banks in India failed between
1913 and 1918 as indicated in the following table:
After independence, Government took major steps in the form of Indian Banking Sector Reform. It initiated measures to play an active role in the economic life of the nation, and the Industrial Policy Resolution adopted by the government in 1948 envisaged a mixed economy. This resulted into greater involvement of the state in different segments of the economy including banking and finance.
In 1955, it nationalized Imperial Bank of India with extensive banking facilities on a large scale especially in rural and semi-urban areas. It formed State Bank of India to act as the principal agent of RBI and to handle banking transactions of the Union and State Governments all over the country. However, despite these provisions, control and regulations, banks in India except the State Bank of India, continued to be owned and operated by private persons. This changed with the nationalization of major banks in India on 19 July, 1969. At the same time, Indian banking industry has emerged as a large employer, and a debate has ensued about the possibility to nationalize the banking industry.
LIBERALIZATION:
Like the overall economy, the Indian banking sector had severe structural problems by the end of the 1980s. By international standards, Indian banks were even despite a rapid growth of deposits extremely unprofitable. In the second half of the 1980s, the average return on assets was about 0.15%. The return on equity was considerably higher at 9.5%, but merely reflected the low capitalization of banks. While in India capital and reserves stood at about 1.5% of assets, other Asian countries reached about 4-6%. These figures do not take the differences in income recognition and loss provisioning standards into account, which would further deteriorate the relative performance of Indian banks.
The year 1991 marked a decisive changing point in India's economic policy since Independence in 1947. Following the 1991 balance of payments crisis, structural reforms were initiated that fundamentally changed the prevailing economic policy in which the state was supposed to take the "commanding heights" of the economy. After decades of far reaching government involvement in the business world, known as the "mixed economy" approach, the private sector started to play a more prominent role. The enacted reforms not only affected the real sector of the economy, but the banking sector as well. Characteristics of banking in India before 1991 were a significant degree of state ownership and far reaching regulations concerning among others the allocation of credit and the setting of interest rates. The blueprint for banking sector reforms was the 1991 report of the Narasimham Committee. Reform steps taken since then include a deregulation of interest rates, an easing of directed credit rules under the priority sector lending arrangements, a reduction of statutory preemptions, and a lowering of entry barriers for both domestic and foreign players.
There was relaxation in the norms for Foreign Direct Investment, where all Foreign Investors in banks may be given voting rights which could exceed the present cap of 10%, at present it has gone up to 49% with some restrictions. The new policy shook the Banking sector in India completely. Bankers, till this time, were used to the 4-6-4 method (Borrow at 4%; Lend at 6%; Go home at 4) of functioning. The new wave ushered in a modern outlook and tech-savvy methods of working for traditional banks. All this led to the retail boom in India. People not just demanded more from their banks but also received more.
Statutory preemptions
The degree of financial repression in the Indian banking sector was significantly reduced with the lowering of the CRR and SLR, which were regarded as one of the main causes of the low profitability and high interest rate spreads in the banking system. During the 1960s and 1970s the CRR was around 5%, but until 1991 it increased to its maximum legal limit of 15%. From its peak in 1991, it has declined gradually to a low of 4.5% in June 2003. In October 2004 it was slightly increased to 5% to counter inflationary pressures, but the RBI remains committed to decrease the CRR to its statutory minimum of 3%. The SLR has seen a similar development. The peak rate of the SLR stood at 38.5% in February 1992, just short of the upper legal limit of 40%. Since then, it has been gradually lowered to the statutory minimum of 25% in October 1997. The
reduction of the CRR and SLR resulted in increased flexibility for banks in determining both the volume and terms of lending.
Interest rate liberalization
Prior to the reforms, interest rates were a tool of cross-subsidization between different sectors of the economy. To achieve this objective, the interest rate structure had grown increasingly complex with both lending and deposit rates set by the RBI. The deregulation of interest rates was a major component of the banking sector reforms that aimed at promoting financial savings and growth of the organized financial system.
Priority sector lending
Besides the high level of statutory preemptions, the priority sector advances were identified as one of the major reasons for the below average profitability of Indian banks. The Narasimham Committee therefore recommended a reduction from 40% to 10%. However, this recommendation has not been implemented and the targets of 40% of net bank credit for domestic banks and 32% for foreign banks have remained the same. While the nominal targets have remained unchanged, the effective burden of priority sector advances has been reduced by expanding the definition of priority sector lending to include for example information technology companies.
Entry barriers
Before the start of the 1991 reforms, there was little effective competition in the Indian banking system for at least two reasons. First, the detailed prescriptions of the RBI concerning for example the setting of interest rates left the banks with limited degrees of freedom to differentiate themselves in the marketplace. Second, India had strict entry restrictions for new banks, which effectively shielded the incumbents from competition.
Through the lowering of entry barriers, competition has significantly increased since the beginning of the 1990s. Seven new private banks entered the market between 1994 and 2000. In addition, over 20 foreign banks started operations in India since 1994. By March 2004, the new private sector banks and the foreign banks had a combined share of almost 20% of total assets.
Prudential norms
The report of the Narasimham Committee was the basis for the strengthening of prudential norms and the supervisory framework. Starting with the guidelines on income recognition, asset classification, provisioning and capital adequacy the RBI issued in 1992/93, there have been continuous efforts to enhance the transparency and accountability of the banking sector. The improvements of the prudential and supervisory framework were accompanied by a paradigm shift from micro-regulation of the banking sector to a strategy of macro-management