State Bank of India has decided to shift its Central Accounts Office (CAO) from Kolkata to its corporate headquarters in Mumbai.
The CAO came into existence after the formation of Imperial Bank of India following the merger of the three presidency banks of British India, and primarily looked into compilation and finalisation of the bank’s annual balance sheet and quarterly and half-yearly profit and loss accounts.
It was set up in Kolkata as Bank of Bengal (which started off as Bank of Calcutta), and was the biggest among the presidency banks. In 1955, the Central government took over the Imperial Bank of India under an Act of the Parliament and renamed it as State Bank of India. As per the Act, it was decided that while the bank’s headquarters would be in Mumbai, the Central Accounts Office would continue to be in Kolkata.
It is to be noted that till 2017, the annual balance sheet was signed by the bank’s central board and its auditors in Kolkata. However, in a break from years of tradition, the bank, in 2018, decided to relocate its annual board meeting from Kolkata to its corporate headquarters citing “logistics issues”.
The ‘Save SBI CAO Kolkata Forum’ has already written to the top management against this “sudden and drastic decision” of shifting the CAO from Kolkata.