INTRODUCTION OF BANKING

It is well said that banking plays a silent, yet crucial part in our day-to-day lives. The banks perform financial intermediation by pooling savings and channelizing them into investments through maturity and risk transformations, thereby keeping the economys growth engine revving. Banking is a business of accepting deposits and lending money. It is carried out by financial intermediaries, which performs the functions of safeguarding deposits and providing loans to the public

DEFINITION OF BANKING
In other words, Banking means accepting for the purpose of lending or investment of deposits of money from public repayable on demand and can be withdrawn by cheque, draft order and so on. As per Section 5(b) of Banking Regulation Act, 1949, banking means the accepting, for the purpose of lending or investment, of deposits of money from the public, repayable on demand or otherwise, and withdrawable by cheque, draft, and order or otherwise.

BANKING IN INDIA
In the modern sense originated in the last decades of the 18th century. The first banks were Bank of Hindustan (1770-1829) and The General Bank of India, established 1786 and since defunct. The largest bank, and the oldest still in existence, is the State Bank of India, which originated in the Bank of Calcutta in June 1806, which almost immediately became the Bank of Bengal. This was one of the three presidency banks, the other two being the Bank of Bombay and the Bank of Madras, all three of which were established under charters from the British East India Company. The three banks merged in 1921 to form the Imperial Bank of India, which, upon India's independence, became the State Bank of India in 1955. For many years the presidency banks

acted as quasi-central banks, as did their successors, until the Reserve Bank of India was established in 1935. In 1969 the Indian government nationalised all the major banks that it did not already own and these have remained under government ownership. They are run under a structure know as 'profit-making public sector undertaking' (PSU) and are allowed to compete and operate as commercial banks. The Indian banking sector is made up of four types of banks, as well as the PSUs and the state banks; they have been joined since 1990s by new private commercial banks and a number of foreign banks. Banking in India was generally fairly mature in terms of supply, product range and reach-even though reach in rural India and to the poor still remains a challenge. The government has developed initiatives to address this through the State bank of India expanding its branch network and through the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development with things like microfinance