Nationalized Banks in India

The 11 Nationalized Banks which were Nationalized in1969 (14 banks) and 1980 (6 banks) through “THE BANKING COMPANIES (ACQUISITION AND TRANSFER OF UNDERTAKINGS) ACT, 1970 and 1980    (Also referred as Bank Nationalization Act)”. Later on various Nationalized banks were merged together, so now only 11 Nationalized Banks exist.

Nationalization means (forceful) acquisition of a private entity by Government.

Imperial Bank was created in 1921 by merging three Presidency banks viz. Bank of Bengal, Bank of Bombay and Bank of Madras. This Imperial Bank was converted into State Bank of India [Through State Bank of India Act 1955] where Govt. of India owned majority of the stake/shares through RBI. So, SBI ownership was transferred to RBI and RBI was owned by Govt. of India. In 2007-08, the entire shareholding (around 60%) of RBI in SBI was transferred to Govt. of India so as to remove any conflict of interest as the RBI is the country’s banking regulatory authority.

So, SBI is a Public Sector Bank, but RBI does not list it under ‘Nationalized Banks’, rather it writes it separately may be because Govt. of India did not directly acquired SBI, rather RBI took control of the SBI in1955. Although we generally say that SBI is a nationalized Bank and it is also mentioned on SBI website, but RBI declares only those banks as ‘Nationalized Banks’ which were acquired by Govt. through the Bank Nationalization Act.