Bank History

The Deccan Merchants Co-op. Bank Ltd. is one of the leading co-operative bank in Mumbai, which provides services through its 13 Branches located at Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, Thane, Pune areas and two Offices Head Office and Central Office. The area of operation of the bank is whole of Maharashtra State. We have 99 years excellent long journey with Golden Days and now from the year 2017 we are going to celebrate our Centenary Year. For the last 99 years we are providing trusted and excellent services. The brief history of our 99 years journey is as follows.

From decade Mumbai is known as financial Capital of India. Many industries, factories and traders were established in Mumbai. At that time Mumbai's population was around 14 to 15 lakh and Three-Fourths of the population was of Marathi speaking people.Marathi peoples were mainly engaged in service sector, doing labourers jobs or small business and professions like Advocates and Doctors etc.for the livelihood.They were less in trading and manufacturing vocation.

The Marathi businessmen were in scarcity of capital. Therefore, the educated Marathi businessmen were realized the need of their own financial institute which can assist them to explore their business. On the basis of that on 16th April, 1914 some Cloth sellers,Printing Press Owners, Book Publishers, Chemist and Traders were gathered and established their own association called "The Deccan Merchants Association".

The meeting of the members of Deccan Merchants Association was held on 20 August 1917 and it was decided to establish a co-operative society. This meeting was headed by renowned Economist Shri. Chintamanrao Samant and with his blessing "The Deccan Merchants Co-op. Society" was established on 30th August 1917. Thereafter, in 1929 on the occasion of Dipavali Padva i.e. Balipratipada the said society was converted into "The Deccan Merchants Co-op. Bank Ltd." The bank was started with its single branch at Girgaum, Mumbai and In August 1937 another branch of bank was opened at Dadar, Mumbai.

The growth of the bank was increased after Independence, the bank which was started with the core capital of Rs.375, enhanced its capital to Rs.1.25 lakh in the year 1957. At that time the Deposits of bank was Rs.29.50 lakh.

However, the real progress of the bank was started from the year 1968. Taking into consideration the progress of the bank The Reserve Bank of India offered the merging of Goregaon based "Kalavihar Co-operative Bank Ltd. in our bank and on 23 December 1978 this bank was merged with us, where our Goregaon branch was started. As mentioned above initially the bank had two branches, Girgaum and Dadar. In the year of 1966 the bank opened its third branch at Byculla and thereafter in the year 1978 at Ghatkoper (West). After that the bank received further Licenses and opened its branches at Borivali, Dhaisar and Ghatkopar (East) in Mumbai. Till the year 1990 the bank had total 8 branches and two offices, the Head office and Central office.

The bank was doing well but its progress was not as good as other banks, as the expansion of bank was stopped due to various reasons. In the year 2002 existing Chairman Shri. Kashinath Dinkar More had taken the charge of Chairmanship of the bank, his first objective was expansion of the bank. He put real efforts and we received license from Reserve Bank of India on 24th May 2004 to open new branch at Vashi, Navi Mumbai. The Vashi Branch was inaugurated by former Deputy Chief Minister Shri Chhaganraoji Bhujbal. At present this branch is our highest profit making branch. In the same year the ground floor premises of our Girgaum building which was with M/s. Bombay Book Depot was taken back from them and our Girgaum Branch was shifted to ground floor for the convenience of our customers.

Meanwhile bank was trying to expand its branch network but could not succeed, as the MOU between the Government of Maharashtra and Reserve Bank of India was not signed. Therefore the RBI was granted stay on issuing new branch licenses to UCBs. Thus, during the period from 2004 to 2009 the bank was unable to open new branches. After execution of MOU between the RBI and Government of Maharashtra in the year 2009 the RBI granted us the permission to open new branches at Thane and Kharghar. Thane Branch was inaugurated by deputy CM. Honorable Shri. Chhaganraoji Bhujbal and Kharghar branch was inaugurated by Honorable Minister Shri. Ganeshji Naik.

At that time the bank's jurisdiction was Mumbai, Thane, Pune and Raigad district but the bank had no branch in Pune district. In the year of 2011 bank made debut in Pune by inaugurating its new branch at Hadapsar, Pune on 16th January 2011 and thereafter on 30th November 2011 it had opened another branch at Saswad Pune. Both these branches were inaugurated by former deputy CM. Honorable Shri. Ajit Pawar.

The present status of the bank branches is as follows:

Sr.No	Branch	Date of Opening
1	Girgaum	19 July, 1929
2	Dadar	August, 1937
3	Byculla	22 April, 1966
4	Ghatkopar - West	20 July, 1978
5	Goregaon	23 December, 1978
6	Borivali	25 May, 1985
7	Dahisar	31 May, 1986
8	Ghatkopar-East	19 August, 1990
9	Vashi	24 May, 2004
10	Thane	28 May, 2009
11	Kharghar	27 December, 2009
12	Hadpsar, Pune	16 January, 2011
13	Saswad, Pune	30 November, 2011

The working of the bank was manual till 1990. In the year 1992 the bank started Computerization process, at first the Girgum Branch was computerized and there after step by step computerization was done in all the branches and offices. Though the branches of the bank were fully computerized they had different softwares hence there was no uniformity in the working of the bank. So there was need to implement unique software in all the branches and offices of the bank. The said subject was taken on agenda and while discussing the thought come up, why we should not go for core banking? and the resolution was passed in year 2005-2006 to implement Core Banking software in the bank and CBS of M/s. Next Step InfoTech Pvt. Ltd. was successfully installed in bank. This software is still running successfully and effectively in the bank.

The next vision of the bank was 24x7 banking service and on the basis of that in the year 2007-2008 bank started it's ATM services in its Ghatkopar(East) branch and Borivali branch and thereafter in Girgaum branch. But scope of ATM services was limited. As Our Account holders had access limited to local ATM network of the bank. So there was low response to our ATM services, It was the dream of our Honorable Chairman Shri. Kashinath D. More to facilitate our customers with ATM facility in all over India by using ATM's of other banks and his dream was fulfilled by introduction of 'Rupay Card'. On 28th June 2014 the bank started its Rupay card services and our customer got access to more than 166K ATM's of other bank in all over India.

The Chairman and Board of Directors are always trying to give all latest banking facility to our customers. The Bank started giving RTGS/NFTS facility from 2009. The facility like Online VAT Payment, Demand Draft on prime cities of India, safe deposit locker facility, Aadhar link saving account facility, franking, life insurance etc. are successfully provided by the bank and the customers are availing benefit of the same. The bank has obtained license for giving Franking services through its Dadar, Thane and Byculla branches. The e-Franking facility is also provided under sub membership of IDBI Bank from all the branches of the bank. The government Schemes of 'Pradhan Mantri Jeevanjyoti Bima Yojna' (PMJBY) and 'Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojna' (PMSBY) is also effectively implemented by the bank.

The bank is doing continuous progress under the efficient leadership of a Chairman Shri. Kashinath D. More, the bank has seen its real growth in his tenure. The members of the bank have a bonding trust in his leadership and the testimony of that the election of the Board of Directors was held unopposed in the year of 2009 and 2015. The Bank was felicitated by an Award of Most Excellent Institute by the 'Rashtriya Sahakarita Vikas Tatha Gramin Prabandh Sanstha'. The Brihan Mumbai Nagari Sahakari Banks' Association had also honored our bank continuously for two years for its working.

In these 99 years the bank has seen different scenarios and experience ups and downs but still its stand firmly and continuously marching towards progress. It was headed by many well known personalities as a Chairman and all of them had contributed their efforts in the progress of bank in their own fashion.

Sr.No.	Year	Name
1	1917 TO 1920	Late. Mr. Chintamanrao Samant
2	1920 TO 1923	Late. Mr. Keshav Balkrishna Joshi
3	1924 TO 1929	Late. Dr. Shankar Ramakrishna Machave
4	1929	Late. Mr. Govind Narayan Potdar
5	1930	Late. Mr. Dharmaveer Shankarkrishna Puppala
6	1931	Late. Dr. Motiram Balkrishna Velkar
7	1932 TO 1936	Late. Mr. Ganesh Hari Pethe
8	1936 TO 1950	Late. Dr. Motiram Balkrishna Velkar
9	1950 TO 1953	Late. Dr. Vitthal Balkrishna Gandhi
10	1953 TO 1958	Late. Mr. Vaman Vasudev Wagh
11	1958 (6 Month)	Late. Mr. Vaman Pundlik Varde
12	1960 TO 1965	Late. Mr. Vinayak Dattaram Dalavi
13	1965 TO 1984	Late Mr. Shantaram Mahadev Dahanukar
14	1984 TO 1986	Late Mr. Dattatraya Damodar Kale
15	1987 TO February, 1993	Late Mr. Pramod Jagannath Vaidya
16	March, 1993 TO October, 1994	Mr. Prakash Aatamaram Atre
17	November, 1994 TO January, 1997	Late Mr. Laxman Mahadeo Khadtare
18	February, 1997 TO November, 1998	Mr. Vinodakumar Takhatamal Kacchara
19	December, 1998 TO December, 2001	Late Mr. Pramod Jagannath Vaidya
20	Since January, 2002	Mr. Kashinath Dinkar More

On the achievement of every mille stone there was a grand celebration. The Silver Jubilee of the bank was celebrated on 19th September 1942 in a garden at 'Vanita Vishram' and the Chairperson of the programme was Raja Sir Raghunath Panth Sachiv, the King of Bhore Sansthan. The programme was concluded by dinner in Hotel Taj.

The Golden Jubilee celebration of the bank was arranged at Vanmali Hall, Dadar on 3rd April 1968. The Chairperson of the Program was Honorable Shri. S. K. Patil and Mr. Balasaheb Desai, the then Revenue Minister of Maharashtra was the Chief Guest, who gave slogan to the bank "असमर्थास समर्थ करणे" .

The Platinum Jubilee celebration was arranged at Swatantryaveer Sawarkar Hall, Shivaji Park Dadar. on 10th and 11th October 1992.. On 10th October the get together of Volunteers of Co-operative Banks was arranged and the Chief Guest was the then Honorable Opposition leader Shri. Gopinathji Munde. On 11th October the ceremony of platinum jubilee concluded in presence of Finance Minister Shri. Ramrao Adik as a Chief Guest.

The bank is now waiting to celebrate its Centenary Year in 2017, the Members, Account holders, Depositors, Customers, Board of Directors and Employees are eager to see the grand celebration of completion of 100 years trusted service of the bank . So many have come, so many have taken benefits, so many have contributed, some of them are still there to share their experience, some of them are gone with history and memories but still the Deccan Merchants Co-operative Bank exists and will exist forever.