SBI overseas branch network increased by 50%

The country’s largest public sector lender State Bank of India (SBI) has opened more overseas branches and its branch network has increased by almost 50%, even after the global financial crisis, informed a top official. SBI chairman OP Bhatt in its 55th Annual General Meeting said, “As we have spread our overseas branches across 32 countries in the world, we have increased our foreign office branches from 92 as on March 31, 2009 to 142 as on March 31, 2010.”

During the fiscal, bank opened six new overseas offices at Clementi, Marine Parade and Toa Payoh in Singapore, Kowloon in Hong Kong, Harrow in the UK and Lenasia in South Africa, and one branch by the bank’s wholly owned USA subsidiary, SBI (California ) Ltd, at Washington DC. Moreover bank opened overseas subsidiaries offices in Bank SBI Indonesia (5 offices), Nepal SBI Bank (3 offices) and SBI Mauritius (1 office).

The SBI chief told, “We have also increased our stake from 50 per cent to 55 per cent in Nepal SBI Bank, during the FY2010, making it the bank’s sixth foreign banking subsidiary”.