One of the oldest banks in South India, The South Indian Bank (SIB) came into being during the Swadeshi Movement. The South Indian Bank Limited was incorporated on 29 January, 1929 at Thrissur, as a Private Limited Company and was later converted into a Public Limited Company on 11 August, 1939. SIB has a network of 955 branches in India and provides retail and corporate banking, Para banking activities such as debit/ credit card, third party product distribution, in addition to Treasury and Foreign Exchange Business.
The first branch outside Kerala was opened by the bank in Coimbatore during the year 1941. SIB, the first among the private sector banks in Kerala to become a scheduled bank in 1946 under the RBI Act. During the year 1963, the bank took over the assets and liabilities of Kshemavilasam Banking Company Ltd and the Ambat Bank Pvt Ltd, Chittur, Kerala. The year 1964 was notable one in the saga of SIB; the bank had acquired ten banks in the single year of 1964 itself, the list of banks include Public Bank Ltd, Suburban Bank Pvt Ltd, Vijalakshmi Bank Pvt Ltd, Chalakudy Bank Ltd, Mukkattukara Catholic Bank Ltd, Assyrian Charities Banking Company Ltd, The Catholic Syrian Christian Bank Ltd, Malabar Bank Ltd, Bharata Union Bank Ltd and Kozhuvanal Bank Ltd. SIB made its entry into merchant banking activities by supporting/underwriting 99 new issues in the year 1990.
A Currency Chest activity of the bank on behalf of the RBI was started to execute in April of the year 1992. Also during the same year of 1992, SIB unlocked a NRI branch in November and developed an in-house, a fully integrated branch automation software in addition to the in-house partial automation solution operational. During the year 1993, the bank started an Industrial Finance Branch in the month of March and opened an 'Overseas Branch' to cater exclusively to the export and import business in June of the same year 1993. Initial Public Offering of the bank was made and went to public in