Banking century: a short history of banking in India & the pioneer Punjab National Bank
- New Delhi Penguin Books 1989
- 432 p.
Punjab National Bank, the first wholly Indian bank in India, was established in 1895. In this fascinating study, the author ranges far and wide in time and space, as he probes the roots of what eventually resulted in a small group of distinguished men starting up a bank in Anarkali Street in Punjab with a nominal equity. The reader is taken back at least two millennia before Christ as the author skilfully unfolds the history of money, banking and finance by way of examples from the Babylonian, Egyptian, Greek, Chinese, Persian, Arab, European and Indian civilizations. The book then looks at the history of banking in India upto the present and, using Punjab National Bank as a pivot, examines the strengths and weaknesses of the nation's banking establishment. A brilliant study of a great Bank and a book that will be indispensable to anyone interested in money, finance, management and economics by one of the country's most respected managers.