United Bank of India (UBI) was an Indian nationalized bank which provided financial and banking services. Established in 1950 and headquartered in

Kolkata Kolkata, also known as Calcutta ( its official name until 2001), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of West Bengal. It lies on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River, west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary ...

, the bank was nationalised by the government of India in 1969 becoming one of public sector banks in the country. The bank has been amalgamated with Punjab National Bank, along with Oriental Bank of Commerce, with effective from 1 April 2020.

History

UBI was the result of the merger in 1950 of four Bengal-based banks: Comilla Banking Corporation (founded by Narendra Chandra Dutta in 1914 in what is now

Bangladesh Bangladesh, officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, eighth-most populous country in the world and among the List of countries and dependencies by ...

), Bengal Central Bank (founded by J. C. Das in 1918), Comilla Union Bank (founded by Indu Bhusan Dutta in 1922) and Hooghly Bank (founded by D. N. Mukherjeee in 1932). All four had suffered runs in December 1938 after the failure of the Nath Bank. The

Reserve Bank of India Reserve Bank of India, abbreviated as RBI, is the central bank of the Republic of India, and regulatory body responsible for regulation of the Indian banking system and Indian rupee, Indian currency. Owned by the Ministry of Finance (India), Min ...

assisted the banks in amalgamating to form United Bank of India. In 1961, UBI merged with Cuttack Bank (est. 6 June 1913) and Tezpur Industrial Bank (est. 6 June 1918, as the first commercial bank in

Assam Assam (, , ) is a state in Northeast India, northeastern India, south of the eastern Himalayas along the Brahmaputra Valley, Brahmaputra and Barak River valleys. Assam covers an area of . It is the second largest state in Northeast India, nor ...

province). Four years later, in 1965, the government of Pakistan took over the bank's branches in Pakistan. On 19 July 1969, the

government of India The Government of India (ISO 15919, ISO: Bhārata Sarakāra, legally the Union Government or Union of India or the Central Government) is the national authority of the Republic of India, located in South Asia, consisting of States and union t ...

nationalised UBI, along with 13 other major Indian commercial banks. At the time of nationalisation UBI had only 174 branches. In 1973, UBI acquired Hindustan Mercant ile Bank (est. 1944). In 1976, UBI acquired Narang Bank of India, which had been established in 1943 in Narang, Gujarat.

Amalgamation

On 30 August 2019,

Finance Minister A ministry of finance is a ministry or other government agency in charge of government finance, fiscal policy, and financial regulation. It is headed by a finance minister, an executive or cabinet position . A ministry of finance's portfoli ...

Nirmala Sitharaman Nirmala Sitharaman (born 18 August 1959) is an Indian economist, politician and a senior leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) serving as the Minister of Finance and Minister of Corporate Affairs of the Government of India since 2019. ...

announced that United Bank and Oriental Bank of Commerce would be merged with Punjab National Bank. The proposed merger would make Punjab National Bank the second largest public sector bank in the country with assets of and 11,437 branches. MD and CEO of UBI, Ashok Kumar Pradhan, stated that the merged entity would begin functioning from 1 April 2020. The Union Cabinet approved the merger on 4 March 2020. Punjab National Bank announced that its board had approved the merger ratios the next day. Shareholders of Oriental Bank of Commerce and United Bank will receive 1,150 shares and 121 shares of Punjab National Bank, respectively, for every 1,000 shares they hold. The merger came into effect since 1 April 2020. Post merger, Punjab National Bank has become the second largest public sector bank in India On 30 March 2009, the Indian government approved the restructuring of United Bank of India. The government proposed to invest 2.5 billion rupees in shares by 31 March and another 5.50 billion in the next fiscal year in Tier-I capital instruments. The move is part of the Indian government's program to improve the capital base of the state-owned banks. UBI gets SEBI approval for Rs 1,000 crore equity issue via QIP On 22 November 2017, United Bank of India (UBI) said it has received SEBI's approval for issue of equity shares worth Rs 1,000 crore by way of institutional placement. On 1 April 2020, the bank along with Oriental Bank of Commerce has been merged with Punjab National Bank, making it as the second largest public sector bank in India.

Controversy over Non-performing Assets (NPAs)

In February 2014, an RBI-appointed forensic audit by

Deloitte Deloitte is a multinational professional services network based in London, United Kingdom. It is the largest professional services network in the world by revenue and number of employees, and is one of the Big Four accounting firms, along wi ...

found serious lapses in the

Non-performing asset A non-performing loan (NPL) is a bank loan that is subject to late repayment or is unlikely to be repaid by the borrower in full. Non-performing loans represent a major challenge for the banking sector, as they reduce profitability. They are ofte ...

detection system of the bank. It is yet to be established whether this oversight on the part of the bank was deliberate or unintentional. The bank has reported a loss of ₹1,238 crore during Q3 of the 2013-14 fiscal year, resulting in a downgrade of its tier-II bonds by ICRA, an associate of Moody's Investor Service. United Bank of India's reported NPA of 10.82% is the highest in percentage among listed banks in India.

Delivery channel based products

* ATM with cash recycler at many branches * Varieties of debit card like platinum and moments card *

Internet banking Online banking, also known as internet banking, virtual banking, web banking or home banking, is a system that enables customers of a bank or other financial institution to conduct a range of financial transactions through the financial institut ...

* Mobile banking * Prepaid card *

SMS banking SMS banking is a form of mobile banking. It is a facility used by some banks or other financial institutions to send messages (also called notifications or alerts) to customers' mobile phones using SMS messaging, or a service provided by them w ...

* United E passbook application *United wallet for utilities payment *United credit card *United UPI Bhim application

References

External links