Grindlays Bank

The Grindlays Bank was a major British overseas bank established in 1828.

It operated mainly in British colonies, especially British India. After decolonization, it was a major foreign bank in India, Pakistan and other West Asian countries. As ANZ Grindlays Bank, it was for a while the largest foreign bank operating in India, with 56 branches in that country.^[1] Standard Chartered Bank acquired ANZ Grindlays in 2000. After the merger the Grindlays name fell out of use.

Early history

Robert Melville Grindlay established a firm, Leslie & Grindlay, in London in 1828, to arrange passage to and from India for customers and their baggage. In time, the firm added private banking activities to its menu of services. Changes in partners caused the firm to change its name to Grindlay, Christian & Matthews in 1839 and Grindlay & Co. from 1843. R.M. Grindlay retired in 1852. Branch firms were opened at Calcutta in 1854 and at Bombay in 1865.^[2] These firms became branches, administered from London, in 1908. Additional branches were opened in Simla (1912), Delhi (1923), Lahore (1924) and Peshawar (1926).

In 1923, National Provincial Bank acquired Grindlay & Co. and converted it to a limited liability company which would operate separately. By 1928, its balance sheet totalled almost £3 million.^[2] When National Provincial decided to exit overseas banking in 1948, it sold Grindlays to the National Bank of India (NBI), in which it took a small share position. NBI and Grindlays finally merged in 1958 under the name National Overseas and Grindlays Bank, renamed National and Grindlays Bank (NGB) in 1959, National Provincial Bank's shareholding being converted into a 9% holding in this new concern. Three years later, in 1961, NGB exchanged a 25 per cent share in NGB for Lloyds Bank’s Eastern Division. In 1968 National Provincial Bank sold its shareholding to Lloyds Bank and in 1969, Citi took a 40 per cent stake in NGB.

Also in 1969, the Ottoman Bank sold its branches in London, Cyprus, Sudan, Jordan, Qatar, East Africa, the Emirates and Rhodesia to the National and Grindlays Bank, which dropped the National prefix in 1975. Grindlays Bank later bought the Ottoman Bank's separate operations in France and Geneva, Banque Ottomane, and renamed them Grindlays Bank - France.^[3]

In 1984 Citi and Lloyds sold Grindlays to the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group. In 1989, five years after it acquired Grindlays, ANZ changed Grindlays' name to ANZ Grindlays Bank and transferred its domicile (requiring an Act of Parliament^[4]) to Australia in 1995. In 1993, ANZ Grindlays sold its African operations to Standard Bank Investment Corporation (Stanbic), which was the holding company for Standard Bank of South Africa's operations outside South Africa. Standard Chartered Bank had sold its shares in Standard Bank of South Africa to the bank's existing shareholders in 1987 to escape anti-apartheid sanctions against South Africa.

In 2000, ANZ sold its Grindlays subsidiary to Standard Chartered Plc which merged it with its existing banking operations.

References

1. ^ ANZ Grindlays heads home, The Hindu, 23 April 2000. Retrieved 2 February 2008.
2. ^ ^{a b} From the archives of the Royal Bank of Scotland, available on the Internet at their archive website. Retrieved 2 February 2008.
3. ^ History of the Bank, from the Ottoman Bank's Archives and Research Centre. Retrieved 2 February 2008.
4. ^ "Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Act 1996". Office of Public Sector Information, The National Archives. http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/localact1996/ukla_19960002_en_1. Retrieved 2009-04-12.