PURELY INDIAN BANK

Waikato Times, Volume 121, Issue 20334, 26 October 1937, Page 2

PURELY INDIAN BANK

DEATH OF FOUNDER The death in Bombay of Sir Sorabjl Pochkhanawala, managing director of the Central Bank of India, gave the Press in India an opportunity of recalling his remarkable career. Born in 1881, Sir Sorabji, who was a Parsee, was the youngest of seven children. His father died when he was only six. A brother procured for him a clerkship in a leading bank where he worked with amazing industry, spending his leisure in study to such good purpose that he early passed important examinations. He rose with the dawn and seldom went to bed before midnight, giving book-keepingawLessons to eke out his slender resoilFSfes. The dream of founding a purely Indian bank began to take shape in his mind. With the help of a friend he seriously tackled the problem of the new institution, the Central Bank of India, which w’as established in Bombay, despite the taunts of “madness” that came from many directions. The bank was registered oil December 21, 1911, with Sir Pherozosha Mehta, the famous Parses leader, as its first chairman, and has become one of the largest banks in India. In 1921 he was a member of the committee appointed by the Government of India to recommend measures for rehabilitating public confidence In 3$ per cent and other non-terminable Government securities. In 1930 he advised Kashmir State on the establishment of a State bank. In 1934 he was chairman of the Ceylon Banking Inquiry Committee.