Bank of Calcutta

The Bank of Calcutta (a precursor to the present State Bank of India) was founded on 2 June 1806, mainly to fund General Arthur Wellesley's wars against Tipu Sultan and the Marathas.

The bank opened branches at Rangoon (1861), Patna (1862), Mirzapur (1862), and Benares (1862).

Among the bank's renowned customers were scholar and politician Dadabhai Naoroji, scientist Jagadish Chandra Bose, India's first President Rajendra Prasad, Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore, and educationalist Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar.

[2] The bank was risk averse and would not lend for more than three months, leading to local businessmen, both British and Indian, launching private banks, many of which failed.

The most storied bank failure was The Union Bank (1828) founded by Dwarakanath Tagore in partnership with British companies.