In 1828 Robert Melville Grindlay established a company in London called Leslie & Grindlay to arrange passage to and from India for customers and their baggage. In time, the company added private banking to its range of services. The firm became styled Grindlay & Co. in 1843 and remained based solely in London until 1854 when offices were opened in Calcutta and then Bombay in 1865. These offices were largely autonomous, administered from London, until the local parties interests were bought out in 1908. Additional branches were opened in Simla (1912), Delhi (1923), Lahore (1924) and Peshawar (1926).Grindlays were regarded as pre-eminently bankers to the Indian Army and did little commercial banking. In 1924 the Bank was acquired by the National Provincial Bank, converted into a company and allowed to operate independently. When National Provincial decided to exit overseas banking in 1948, it sold Grindlays to the National Bank of India (NBI). NBI and Grindlays were not merged operationally until 1958 under the name National Overseas & Grindlays Bank, renamed National & Grindlays Bank (NGB) in 1959. In 1984 the Bank was acquired by the Australia & New Zealand Banking Group, who changed its name to ANZ Grindlays Bank in 1989. Standard Chartered Bank acquired ANZ Grindlays in 2000 and the Grindlays name fell out of use.