The term Merchant Banking has its origin in the trading methods of countries in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century when trade-taking place was financed by bill of exchange drawn by merchanting houses

The top merchant bankers in the USA include JP Morgan, Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, UBS, Barclays and RBC Capital Markets.

Often, SMEs in India don’t achieve their full potential due to lack of funding during the crucial stages of growth. With the BSE and NSE launching SME exchanges for helping small and medium industries tap the capital markets for additional funding, merchant bankers will have a key role to play by liaising between the enterprises and investors to make sure that public funds are put to the best use for the growth of the SME sector as well as the Indian economy as a whole.