Legacy

Purshottam Kanji, a traditional business conglomerate, celebrates its 100th year of successful traditional business ventures in the Sultanate of Oman.

Set up in the year 1920, by Mr. Purshottam Kanji and his father Mr. Kanji, who migrated from the terrains of Kutch, Gujarat in India. started their business trading viz. in rice, sugar, edible oil and clothes.

With the passage of time, in the year 1955, Purshottam Kanji started small business as a Saraf, exchanging money between Dubai and Muscat and buying and selling of pure 24 ct gold. Most tradable currencies those days were  Maria Theresa thalers – ‘Kirsh Franci Fadda’  a  silver Coin which was originally minted in Austria and the Indian Rupees which were  in circulation in Oman until 1969.

For a decade from 1970 to 1980, Purshottam Kanji, were doing money exchange and gold  business on their trade license just from Ministry of Commerce,.

In the year 1980, Central Bank of Oman  introduced Money Exchange regulation  and M/S. Purshottam Kanji were the first company to to get the license issued by CBO to carry on Money Exchange and Draft drawing and buying and selling of gold business.

Earlier, Central Bank of Oman had allowed to open only up to Seven branches.  Later on they sanctioned more branches all over Oman through its length and breadth, as the country was expanding on a rapid pace under His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said’s dynamic vision and wise leadership  on all fronts, attracting  all round business opportunities.  Large number of expatriate  work force was attracted to Oman for  contributing  their  efforts  for the rapid development of Oman, said Mr. Shah.

FIRST BRANCH IN MUTRAH

The first branch was opened in Mutrah Cornish, Mr. Gulab Pawani, Director of Purshottam Kanji.  In the early days we created awareness by distributing leaflets, newspaper advertisements and mouth to mouth canvassing about the benefits of transferring money to India through official channel which was started by Reserve Bank of India”, further adding other countries – Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Philipines were followed.

To the credit of Purshottam Kanji Exchange LLC; first bank correspondence relationship  was set up in the year 1980 with three Indian banks – Bank of Baroda, Corporation Bank and Catholic Syrian Bank.

Recalling the initial days,  “Those days we begun  with  only four staff members in our branch and the entries and accounts were managed manually. Demand Draft was printed and used to send by courier to India which took long time. Interestingly, there was no computers, but scenario changed with technology catching up globally and Oman growing fast under the able leadership of His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said, we too introduced computers and electronic transfers.”

Today we are serving people from 21 branch outlets with more then 30 correspondent banks and Money transfer operators all over the globe. Also leading Importer and buying and selling of  of 24 carat pure gold from 1 gr to 1 Kg bar,and   over 130 staff members. The company with its policy of supporting staff members have given all the facilities and also around 90 percent of the staff stays with their families in Oman.