The agency houses performed various quasi-banking functions which included but were not limited to:[4] The Palmer and Co. was founded with the name Paxton, Cockerell and Trail.
[7] The Palmer and Co. agency house failed in the year 1830 due to major economic downturn affecting the British India.
[8] Charles Russell (1786–1856) was implicated in a corruption scandal where Lord Hastings, a Governor-General of India, was alleged to have acted partially on behalf of Palmer and Company, a Hyderabad banking house.
The Russells were found to have been involved in and profited from the firm's dealings with the Nizam of Hyderabad, Mir Akbar Ali Khan, directly from Hastings' 1816 decision to exempt the house from a ban on lending money to native princes.
Henry Russell's successor, Sir Charles Metcalfe, discovered a loan in 1820 that was both fictitious and fraudulent.