Indian Overseas Bank (IOB) was founded on February 10th 1937, by Shri.M.Ct.M. Chidambaram Chettyar, a pioneer in many fields - Banking a pioneer in many fields.

Shri.M.Ct.M. Chidambaram Chettyar establishes the Indian Overseas Bank (IOB) to encourage overseas banking and foreign exchange operations. IOB started up simultaneously at three branches, one each in Karaikudi, Madras (Chennai) and Rangoon (Yangon). It then quickly opened a branch in Penang and another in Singapore. The bank served the Nattukottai Chettiars, who were a mercantile class that at the time had spread from Chettinad in Tamil Nadu state to Ceylon (Sri Lanka), Burma (Myanmar), Malaya, Singapore, Java, Sumatra, and Saigon. As a result, from the beginning IOB specialized in foreign exchange and overseas banking.

M.Ct.M. Chidambaram Chettyar was born to Muthiah Chettiar and his wife Deivanai Achi, on August 2, 1908. With a strict father, MCt was all along much closer to his mother. He went to Madras Christian College High School in Madras, but did not complete graduation. The family training, an instinctive feel for numbers and a shrewdness and wisdom inherited from his mother gave him an education that no institution could.

MCt was in his teens when he married Valliammai Achi. They had two sons, Muthiah and Pethachi. Though he himself never felt the need for formal education, he provided the best education for his sons in India and abroad.

It was a pioneering journey of great promise that the 21-year-old M.Ct.M. Chidambaram Chettyar started on when his father, Sir. M.Ct. Muthiah Chettiar, passed away young, leaving his son with family wealth, a small insurance company and a grief-stricken brother. But tragedy struck this Chettyar family once again. It was a fine, clear afternoon in Singapore on March 13, 1954 when 31 passengers perished in an aircrash. Regretfully, one of them was M. Ct. M. Chidambaram Chettyar.

MCt, as he was very popularly known, was only 46 then, but in 25 years he had founded and led from the front, the Indian Overseas Bank, the first Indian bank to focus on the exchange business with a network of branches in South and Southeast Asia, the United India Fire & General Insurance Company, the first general insurance company in the South, and Travancore Rayons, South and Southeast Asia's first synthetic fibre manufacturing facility and one of the first major non-traditional industries in India.

Though he took over the United India Life Assurance Company well after it was founded, it was he who steered its growth. Together, these companies played a commanding role in the affairs of the economy at that time, with the bank and the insurance company continuing to do so even today as nationalised institutions.

Way back in 1937, in recognition of the role played by the Indian diaspora in Burma and South-East Asia in trade and commerce of this region, MCt founded the Indian Overseas Bank (IOB) with the "Indian Overseas" as prime focus. And though there were many domestic banks by then, IOB was the first Indian owned bank to establish operations overseas with branches in Rangoon, Colombo, Singapore and interior Malaya as it was called then.

The bank was also among the first then to provide foreign exchange services that was a felt need by the Indians overseas. He had also opened many branches in major cities in India, apart from the overseas branches. MCt displayed the finesse and professionalism of a modern day management guru, despite the fact that he never even went to college. He combined many contradictory skills with broad sweeps of the long range with attention to detail, accessibility to all and yet not letting anyone intrude on his time.

MCt was a great visionary, who was well ahead of his times. While banks talk of becoming financial supermarkets today, he had combined insurance, banking and housing products even then. As an industrialist he was proactive and, welcomed the employees union, observing that in the interest of the country, labour and management should "hold together and march forward with patience, discipline and self control", casting as much a duty on management as labour for industrial peace. Many still talk of corporate governance today, but he practiced it as an edict even then. While many would seek public office with its attendant limelight, he quit as councillor of the Corporation of Madras after just one year for the same reason.

M.Ct. (on right) with his mother, Lady Deivanai Achi, his sons,
Pethachi (extreme left) Muthaiah and his niece Devaki, nephew Muthu

MCt was a mentor to many and was an inspiring role model not only at the work place but also in life generally. His friends and co-directors were from a wide spectrum of society cutting across caste, community, religion and background. He believed that India must be developed but he voiced from time to time in his very gentle way, reservations on the role of government in matters of banking, insurance and protection of domestic industry. His was a mind of great refinement, with a catholic and inclusive view of the world that spanned aesthetics, architecture, the fine arts and music (not only Carnatic and Hindustani, but that of the West too). He set up many educational institutions and hospitals apart from the emphasis he gave to training and continuing education at all levels in his institutions.

A standing memorial to him, a man who was passionate about architecture is the United India Building, the South's first skyscraper, which he started raising in his lifetime. Nationalisation made the Mount Road landmark the LIC's regional headquarters. All of India has been left wondering how much M.Ct.M. Chidambaram Chettyar might have achieved if he had lived a normal lifespan.