Central Bank of India, a public sector banking institution is one of the oldest and largest commercial banks in India. The bank has their branches in 28 States and 8 Union Territories in India. The Bank's main business is taking deposits, lending money and making investments. They also offer a wide range of general banking services to customers, including credit cards, debit cards, cash management and remittance services and collection services. The Bank distributes third party life and non-life insurance policies and mutual funds on an agency basis. They act as agent for various State Governments and the Government of India on numerous matters including the collection of taxes and the payment of pensions. They also issue traveler's cheques and gift cheques.
The Bank's deposit taking and lending business is divided into three main areas, namely retail, agriculture and corporate. The retail business provides financial products and services, such as loans and advances for housing, retail trade, automobiles, consumer durables, education and other personal loans to their retail customers. The agricultural banking business offers direct financing to farmers for production and investment, as well as indirect financing for infrastructure development and credit to suppliers of agricultural inputs. The Bank provides commercial banking products and services to corporate and commercial customers, including mid-sized and small businesses and government entities.
The Bank sponsors 7 Regional Rural Banks in collaboration with the state governments of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan. Also, they entered into agency agreements with Life Insurance Corporation of India and The New India Assurance Company Ltd to distribute their various insurance products, for which they are paid a fee. In order to develop rural entrepreneurship, the Bank launched a Rural Development and Self Employment Training Institute (Rudseti) at Hoshangabad. This provided intensive entrepreneurship training to the rural youth and enables them to take to vocational activities. Also, the Bank launched Financial Literacy and Credit Counseling Centre at Vadkun in Thane, which provides free counseling to the villagers on the various banking products, both deposits and loans and also counseling to distressed borrowers, irrespective of whether they are bank's clients or not.
Central Bank of India was incorporated on December 21, 1911 as The Central Bank of India Ltd and was founded by Sir Sorabji Pochkhanawala. In May 1, 1929, the Bank incorporated The Central Bank Executor and Trustee Company Ltd (now known as Centbank Financial and Custodial Services Ltd) as a subsidiary of the Bank to undertake the trustee and executor business and act as executors, administrators and trustees and executes private and public trusts, including, religious and charitable trusts.
In year 1969, the Bank was nationalized along with 13 other major commercial banks and is currently owned by Government of India. The Bank was renamed as Central Bank of India. The Bank introduced the credit card in the name 'Centralcard' in the year 1980. In the year 1984, Indo-Zambia Bank Ltd, a joint venture Bank was incorporated under the laws of the Republic of Zambia, which carries out banking activities in Zambia.
In the year 1991, the Bank incorporated Cent Bank Home Finance Ltd (formerly known as Apna Ghar Vitta Nigam Ltd), a housing finance institution registered with the National Housing Bank as a subsidiary of the Bank for providing long term finance for the purchase or construction of houses in India. In the year 1994, Quick Cheque Collection Service (QCC) & Express Service was set up to enable speedy collection of outstation cheques.
In the year 2007, the Bank restructured their entire paid up capital by conversion of an amount aggregating Rs 8,000 million out of the equity share capital of Rs 11,241.40 million into perpetual non-cumulative preference share capital, while retaining the balance amount aggregating Rs 3,241.41 million as equity share capital of the Bank. The Bank entered into agreements with UTI Asset Management Company Pvt Ltd and Tata Asset Management Ltd for the sale of their mutual fund products, for which the Bank is paid on a commission basis and fee basis, respectively.
During the year 2007-08, the Bank opened 96 branches and 1 new extension counters, upgraded 22 extension counters to full fledged branches and merged 4 branches and 3 extension counters with the base office. The Bank launched two retail lending scheme, such as Cent Udaan, which is the scheme for educational loan for commercial pilot training courses and Cent Swabhiman, a reverse mortgage loan scheme for senior citizens, in which senior citizens can monetise their residential property by mortgaging the same and in turn get periodic payments or lumpsum payment.
In May 2007, the Bank entered into an agreement with Franklin Templeton Asset Management (India) Pvt Ltd to distribute units of schemes of Franklin Templeton Mutual Fund. In July 2007, the Bank entered capital market with their maiden initial public offer. The IPO received stupendous response and was successfully oversubscribed by 62.07 times-the highest ever subscription received by any bank in India. After this issue, the Government of India's shareholding in the Bank reduced to 80.20%. In March 15, 2008, the Bank entered into a MoU with SME Rating Agency of India Ltd for rating of SME borrowers.
Central Bank of India was conferred with the 1st Award under National Awards for Excellence in MSE Lending based on their outstanding performance in lending to Micro and Small Enterprises during the year 2007-08.
In December 29, 2008, Kotak Mahindra Asset Management Company, one of India's leading mutual fund houses, entered into a distribution tie-up with Central Bank of India. Under the agreement Central Bank of India will offer the entire bouquet of Kotak Mutual Fund products from their branches.
During the year 2008-09, the Bank opened 190 branches and 22 Extension Counters were upgraded into full-fledged branches. Also, two branches namely, Cuffe Parade branch and Versova Road branch were merged with Colaba Causeway branch and Seven Bunglows branch respectively. In August 2008, the Bank launched two premium visa credit card products - Visa Platinum and Visa Gold credit cards. They completed roll-out of 400 ATMs by October 2008 as per Phase-l implementation.
During the year, 3 RRBs namely Satpura Kshetriya Gramin Bank, Chambal Gwalior Kshetriya Gramin Bank and Ratlam Mandsaur Kshetriya Gramin Bank in Madhya Pradesh were amalgamated and formed a new entity with the name as Satpura Narmada Kshetriya Gramin Bank. Also, 2 RRBs namely Uttar Bihar Kshetriya Gramin Bank and Kosi Kshetriya Gramin Bank in Bihar were amalgamated and formed a new entity with the name Uttar Bihar Gramin Bank.
During the year 2009-10, the Bank opened 49 branches, upgraded 11 extension counters to full-fledged branches and merged 1 branch. As per the Government of India notification, 2 RRBs namely Ballia Kshetriya Gramin Bank and Etawaha Kshetriya Gramin Bank in Uttar Pradesh were amalgamated and formed a new entity with the name as Ballia Etawaha Gramin Bank.
During the year, the Bank introduced new schemes to cater to market demand. These are Short Term Loan to companies eligible for issuance of Commercial Paper, Production Equipment Finance Scheme, Mibor linked short term loan for large corporate and Cent Swabhiman Plus (Annuity product) Cent Doctor and Cent Personal Gold Loan for Retail segments. Also, they commenced loan syndication which has elicited good response from the market.
In March 2009, the Bank launched prepaid Cent-Gift Cards and got license for issuance of prepaid Travel Cards in foreign currency. They entered into tie-up arrangement with HCL Infosystems Ltd., for providing need based finance for purchase HCL computers and also joined hands with Future Group for marketing Retail products to the customers at Big Bazaar Departmental Store all over India.
During the year 2010-11, the company opened 82 new branches and upgraded 53 extension counters into full fledged branches. They also opened 17 Mid Corporate branches and 1 Asset Recovery Branch. They opened 2 temporary branches for Common Wealth Games at Delhi which were closed. The ATM network was being expanded on a large scale. Banks ATM network in year 2010-11 was expanded from 400 to 1006. The Bank has increased their paid-up capital by way of issue of Preference Shares in the form of Perpetual Non-Cumulative Preference Shares (PNCPS) to the tune of Rs 250 crore to Government of India.
In August 2011, the Bank entered into an agency tie-up with Cholamandalam MS General Insurance Company for selling their insurance products. The products will be customised for the Bank and will be sold through 3,728 bank branches.
On 21 December 2011, Central Bank of India announced that the bank has raised Rs 500 crore of Tier II Capital on private placement basis.
On 2 April 2012, Central Bank of India announced that the Preferential Allotment Committee of the Board of Directors of the bank at its meeting held on 31 March 2012 approved allotment of 6.4 crore equity shares at issue price of Rs 105.61 per equity share to Government of India and allotment of 2.55 crore equity shares at issue price of Rs 105.61 per equity share to Life insurance Corporation of India.
On 28 September 2012, Central Bank of India announced that the bank has raised Rs 500 crore by issue and allotment of 5000 Unsecured Perpetual Tier-I Bonds (Series II) of face value of Rs 10 lakh each on private placement basis.
The Capital Raising Committee of the Board of Directors of the bank at its meeting held on 20 March 2013 allotted 30.84 crore equity shares to Government of India on preferential basis at issue price of Rs 78 per equity share aggregating upto Rs 2406 crore.
On 2 April 2013, Central Bank of India announced that the bank recorded total business of Rs 4.02 lakh crore as on 31 March 2013, crossing the milestone business target of Rs 4 lakh crore.
The Capital Raising Committee of the Board of Directors of the bank at its meeting held on 11 December 2013 allotted 30.58 crore equity shares to Government of India on preferential basis at issue price of Rs 58.85 per equity share aggregating upto Rs 1800 crore.
On 6 March 2014, Central Bank of India announced that it has sold its entire stake in Credit Information Bureau of India Limited (CIBIL) to Transunion International Inc (FII).
The Capital Raising Committee of the Board of Directors of the bank at its meeting held on 1 August 2014 allotted 7.10 crore equity shares to Life Insurance Corporation of India on preferential basis at issue price of Rs 81.83 per equity share aggregating to Rs 581.61 crore.
The Capital Raising Committee of the Board of Directors of the bank at its meeting held on 1 January 2015 allotted 8.28 crore equity shares to Life Insurance Corporation of India on preferential basis at issue price of Rs 75.55 per equity share aggregating to Rs 626.23 crore.
The Capital Raising Committee of the Board of Directors of the bank at its meeting held on 24 March 2015 allotted 15.38 crore equity shares to Government of India (GOI) on preferential basis at a conversion price of Rs 105.09 per equity share by conversion of 161.7 crore Perpetual Non-Cumulative Preference Shares (PNCPS) of the face value of Rs 10 each held by GOI aggregating upto Rs 1617 crore. With this allotment, the shareholding of Government of India has increased to 81.46% from 79.56%.
The Capital Raising Committee of the Board of Directors of the bank at its meeting held on 31 March 2016 allotted 3.14 crore equity shares to Life Insurance Corporation of India on preferential basis at issue price of Rs 52.66 per equity share aggregating to Rs 165.56 crore.
The Capital Raising Committee of the Board of Directors of the bank at its meeting held on 12 May 2016 allotted 7.15 crore equity shares to Government of India on preferential basis for cash at an issue price of Rs 74.82 per equity share aggregating to Rs 535 crore.
Central Bank of India (CBI) entered into MOU with Nepal Bank Ltd. (NBL) on 2 July 2016 for CENT NEPAL MITRA Remittance facility for Nepali citizens in India for sending money to their beneficiaries in Nepal.
The Capital Raising Committee of the Board of Directors of the bank at its meeting held on 8 September 2016 allotted 12.38 crore equity shares to Government of India on preferential basis at the issue price of Rs 104.76 per equity share aggregating upto Rs 1297 crore. With this allotment, shareholding of Government of India has increased from 80.76% to 82.02%.
The Capital Raising Committee of the Board of Directors of the bank at its meeting held on 5 December 2016 allotted 1.71 crore equity shares to Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) at the issue price of Rs 91.45 per equity share aggregating to Rs 156.79 crore on preferential allotment basis.
The Board of Directors of Central Bank of India at its meeting held on 23 January 2017 considered and approved the proposal for premature Buy-Back of 9.40% Perpetual Bonds of Rs 500 crore.
On 14 June 2017, Central Bank of India (CBI) announced that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), vide its letter dated13 June 2017 has put the bank under Prompt Corrective Action in view of high net NPA and negative RoA. CBI said that the corrective measures arising out of the PCA will help in improving overall performance of the bank.
The Capital Raising Committee of the Board of Directors of the bank at its meeting held on 18 August 2017 allotted 96.01 lakh equity shares to Government of India at the issue price of Rs 104.15 per equity share aggregating Rs 100 crore on preferential allotment basis.
The Capital Raising Committee of the Board of Directors of the bank at its meeting held on 16 November 2017 allotted 5.59 crore shares to Government of India at issue price of Rs 104.15 per share aggregating Rs 583 crore arising out of extinguishment of 5,840 Innovative Perpetual Debt Instruments of Rs 10 lakh each held by Government of India. With this allotment, the shareholding of Government of India in Central Bank of India has increased to 81.91% from 81.38%.
On 20 January 2018, Central Bank of India inaugurated its first Aadhar enrollment Centre at its Cotton Exchange Branch, Mumbai.
The Capital Raising Committee of the Board of Directors of the bank at its meeting held on 27 March 2018 allotted 65.04 crore shares aggregating to Rs 5158 crore to Government of India on preferential basis. With this allotment, the shareholding of Government of India in Central Bank of India has increased to 86.4% from 81.91%.
As on 31st March 2018, Bank had network of 4685 branches, 4886 ATMs, 10 satellite offices and 1 Extension Counter across the country.
As on 31st March 2019, Bank had network of 4,659 branches, spanning 63% branches in rural & semi-urban areas, 3,966 ATMs, 10 satellite offices and 1 Extension Counter across the country.
As on 31st March 2020, Bank had network of 4651 branches, spanning 63.32% branches in rural & semi-urban areas, 3642 ATMs, 10 satellite offices and 1 Extension Counter across the country.
As on 31st March 2021, Bank had network of 4608 branches, spanning 64% branches in rural & semi-urban areas, 3644 ATMs, 10 satellite offices and 1 Extension Counter across the country.
As on 31st March 2022, Bank had network of 4528 branches, spanning 65% branches in rural & semi-urban areas, 2976 ATMs, 10 satellite offices and 1 Extension Counter across the country.
As on 31st March 2023, Bank had network of 4,493 branches, 3,752 ATMs, and 9,959 BC Outlets.
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