Tamilnad Mercantile Bank Limited (TMB) is a bank headquartered at

Thoothukudi Thoothukudi (formerly Tuticorin) is a port city, a municipal corporation and an industrial city in Thoothukudi district in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. The city lies in the Coromandel Coast of Bay of Bengal. Thoothukudi is the capital and he ...

Tamil Nadu Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is a state in southern India. It is the tenth largest Indian state by area and the sixth largest by population. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu is the home of the Tamil people, whose Tamil language ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

. TMB was founded in 1921 as the Nadar Bank, but changed its name to Tamilnad Mercantile Bank in November 1962 to widen its appeal beyond the Nadar community. For the financial year 2018–2019, the bank reported a net profit of 2585 million."Financial Highlights"
. Tmb.in The bank currently has 509 full branches throughout India, 12 Regional offices and two link offices, two central processing centres, one Service Branch, four Currency Chests, 48 eLobby centres, 262 Cash Recycler Machines (Cash deposit machine) and 1151 Automated Teller Machines (ATM). The bank has been expanding its footprint all over India. TMB was rated as the fastest growing Private Sector Bank continuously for the five years from 2010 to 2015. It was also rated as the Best Bank in the years 2013, 2014 and 2015, due to its robust growth. During the years of 2018 and 2019 it did total business of 616 billion rupees. The bank's planned outlay for the financial year is to reach business worth 600 billion rupees, add an additional 24 branches, and increase its ATMs to 1151. The bank has won the Lokmat BFSI Best Private Sector Bank 2014-15 award.
. Tmb.in (28 August 2015).

History

The history of Tamilnad Mercantile Bank dates back to 1921. The idea to establish a bank for the Nadar business community was first proposed at the annual meeting of the Nadar Mahajana Sangam held at

in 1920. The bank was originally registered on 11 May 1921, as Nadar Bank Limited, under the Indian Companies Act, 1913. M. V. Shanmugavel Nadar was elected as the first chairman on 4 November 1921. The bank was opened to the public by T. V. Balagurusamy Nadar on 11 November 1921 in Ana Mavanna Building at South Raja Street, Thoothukudi. In 1937, Nadar Bank opened a branch in Sri Lanka, but by 1939 it had closed it. By 1947, the bank had only four branches: Thoothukudi,

Madurai Madurai ( , also , ) is a major city in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is the cultural capital of Tamil Nadu and the administrative headquarters of Madurai District. As of the 2011 census, it was the third largest Urban agglomeration in ...

Sivakasi Sivakasi () is a city and Municipal Corporation in Virudhunagar District in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. This city is known for its fireworks, firecracker, matchbox and printing industries. Sivakasi city alone meets about 90% fire cracke ...

and Virudhunagar. The bank opened its first Indian branch outside the state of Tamil Nadu in 1976 at Bengaluru. The first fully computerised branch was opened at WGC Road, Thoothukudi on 9 December 1984. The Bank launched its ATM Card on 11 November 2003. On 6 September 2021, the Tamilnad Mercantile Bank filed a draft red herring prospectus with the Securities and Exchange Board of India to raise funds through an

initial public offering An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investme ...

. On 7 June 2022, the company received approval from the Securities and Exchange Board of India for its Initial public offering.

Technology Initiatives

Tamilnad Mercantile Bank was the first private sector bank in India to introduce computerisation for branch-level operations. The bank adopted modernization as early in the year 1983. Today all 509 branches of the bank are networked using

Infosys Infosys Limited is an Indian multinational information technology company that provides business consulting, information technology and outsourcing services. The company was founded in Pune and is headquartered in Bangalore. Infosys is the s ...

's "FINACLE" Software and have achieved 100% connectivity. RTGS/NEFT facilities in ebanking have been successfully implemented. The bank has also entered into an agreement with BillDesk (India ideas.com), CCAvenue (Avenues India), SBI ePay, Atom Technologies and PayU India for providing payment gateway services to the internet banking customers. It was the first old bank to have introduced mobile banking and providing POS machines to their Customers. The bank has implemented a video conferencing facility to connect Head Office with various Departments and Regional offices. TMB is a member of National Financial Switch for its ATM operations. Tie-up arrangement made with

Western Union The Western Union Company is an American multinational financial services company, headquartered in Denver, Colorado. Founded in 1851 as the New York and Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Company in Rochester, New York, the company cha ...

Money Transfer, UAE Exchange & Financial Services...etc. for remittances from abroad to India to facilitate quick receipt of remittances by the beneficiaries. The bank has tie-up agreement with ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund, UTI Mutual Fund, Reliance Mutual Fund, Franklin Templeton Mutual Fund, Birla Sun Life Mutual Fund, Sundaram Mutual Fund and HDFC Mutual Fund for selling their Mutual Fund Products. The bank became a Depository participant through NSDL to make available Demat facilities. TMB was the first bank in south India to offer ASBA facilities. It also offers off-line and online share-trading through Religare Securities. TMB entered the commodity futures market by becoming a clearing bank for NCDEX and MCX. It was one of the first banks in the banking industry to have online deposit opening through the TMB e-connect facility. TMB has introduced "Choose Your Account Number" facility for anywhere banking account holders and introduced Missed Call Banking to check Account Balance, BSNL bill payment through branches and RuPay Debit Card. The Mobile application like TMB e-Passbook and TMB Locations are also introduced.

Foreign Exchange

The bank achieved a turnover of 15,726 crores in foreign exchange for the year ended March 2019. In terms of forex turnover, TMB ranks first among the Tamil Nadu-based private sector banks. With a view to provide enhanced facilities to the bank's customers, the bank shifted its foreign exchange department from Tuticorin to Chennai, and created an integrated Treasury and Foreign Exchange Operations Department with adequate infrastructure to handle trading in Government Securities, Bonds, Shares, foreign exchange and derivatives. TMB is a member of the

Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication Swift or SWIFT most commonly refers to: * SWIFT, an international organization facilitating transactions between banks ** SWIFT code * Swift (programming language) * Swift (bird), a family of birds It may also refer to: Organizations * SWIFT, a ...

(SWIFT).

Branch sharing tie up

TMB has tie-up arrangements with

IDBI Bank The IDBI Bank Limited (IDBI Bank or IDBI) is a development finance institution under the ownership of Life Insurance Corporation of India and Government of India. It was established in 1964 as Industrial Development Bank of India, a developmen ...

(136 locations), and

HDFC Bank HDFC Bank Limited (also known as HDB) is an Indian banking and financial services company headquartered in Mumbai. It is India's largest private sector bank by assets and world's 10th largest bank by market capitalisation . It is the third lar ...

(531 locations).

Controversies

In 2021 the directors of the bank were fined on two occasions. Once for an amount of 11.33 crores and 5.33 crores for another. The fine was for authorising transfer of shares to foreign entities such as RST Limited, Katra Holdings Limited, GHI I Limited, Kamehameha (Mauritius) Limited, FI Investments (Mauritius) Limited, Cuna Group (Mauritius) Limited, and Swiss Re Investors (Mauritius) Limited, Sub-Continental Equities Ltd, Mauritius, and Robert & Adris James Company Limited, Mauritius not authorised by

Reserve Bank of India The Reserve Bank of India, chiefly known as RBI, is India's central bank and regulatory body responsible for regulation of the Indian banking system. It is under the ownership of Ministry of Finance, Government of India. It is responsible f ...

for acquiring shares in the bank.

Citations and references

;Citations ;References *de S. Gunasekera, H.A. (1962) ''From dependent currency to central banking in Ceylon; an analysis of monetary experience, 1825-1957''. (London School of Economics and Political Science, University of London).

External links

*
The billion-rupee war for the Tamilnad Mercantile Bank

{{Banking in India Private sector banks in India Banks established in 1921 Companies based in Tuticorin Indian companies established in 1921