State-owned Punjab National Bank (PNB) announced the launch of financial inclusion and national initiative ‘Gram Sampark Abhiyan’ on Friday to celebrate the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi. PNB said in a statement that the nationwide campaign was launched by Minister of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Narendra Singh Tomar.
The campaign is mainly centered on four key themes- credit, digital, social security, and financial literacy that will encapsulate various activities and prescribes the cherished theme of ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’. Since the launch, PNB’s 2,752 semi-urban and 3,930 rural branches will aim to reach 526 districts during the campaign, with two camps per branch every month. This campaign would come to a crescendo on December 31, 2020, covering 526 districts in 24 states, including Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Bihar, Manipur, Odisha, Telangana, and Tripura.
Punjab National Bank (PNB) is a Financial and Banking service bank owned by the Government of India. PNB has its headquarters in New Delhi, India. It is the second-largest public sector bank (PSB), both in terms of its network and business and was founded in 1894. The bank has around 181 million customers, 10910 branches, and 13,100+ TMs post-merger with Oriental Bank of Commerce and United Bank of India which is effective from April 2020.
There is a banking subsidiary for PNB in the UK (PNB International Bank, with several branches in the UK), as well as branches in Dubai, Kowloon, Hong Kong, and Kabul. It has representative offices in Dubai (United Arab Emirates), Almaty (Kazakhstan), Shanghai (China), Sydney (Australia), and Oslo (Norway). In Bhutan, it owns 51% of Druk PNB Bank which extends up to 5 branches. PNB owns 20% of Everest Bank Limited which has around 50 branches in Nepal. IN Kazhakstan, PNB owns about 41.64% of JSC (SB) which has four branches.
Some of the latest initiatives taken by PNB include the donations made by them to the CM relief fund for Kerala and Kumbh Mela during the year 2018-19. The same year they had initiated Rs 1851.41 for RSETIs. As a major effort towards supporting the national games, the bank also initiated PNB Hockey Academy to help young talents in India. Looking a little back, during the financial year 2012-13, The bank incurred costs of Rs 3.24crores on CSR activities like tree plantations, medical camps, farmer training, blood donation camps, etc.
