List of Banks in India: an overview
The Reserve Bank of India groups the country's scheduled commercial banks into public sector banks, private sector banks, foreign banks, small finance banks, payments banks and regional rural banks. This page covers the first two groups. RBI's own bank directory currently lists 12 public sector banks and 21 private sector banks, and each of them now operates on a bank.in web address, the domain RBI reserved for regulated banks.
Public sector banks are those in which the Government of India holds the majority stake. The largest, State Bank of India, traces its roots to the Bank of Calcutta, which opened in June 1806, and took its present form on 1 July 1955 when the Imperial Bank of India was nationalised. After a series of amalgamations, RBI's list of public sector banks has shrunk to twelve names.
The private sector group mixes century-old regional lenders with banks licensed after 1993. Karur Vysya Bank dates to 1916, Tamilnad Mercantile Bank was registered in Thoothukudi in 1921 as Nadar Bank, and Federal Bank was incorporated in 1931 in Travancore. Nainital Bank remains classified as a private bank even though Bank of Baroda holds a controlling stake. AU Small Finance Bank received RBI's in-principle approval in August 2025 to become a universal bank and is not yet in the private sector list.