SBI to open 800 branches in 2011-12

Source:PTI:Aug 07,2011:Newdelhi
The country's largest lender State Bank of India (SBI) plans to open 800 more
more branches in 2011-12 taking its total network to over 14,000 branches.


."We are planning to open 700-800 branches in the current financial year against 650 set up during the last fiscal," SBI Managing Director and CFO Diwakar Gupta told PTI.

New branches would be spread across all the 14 circles, he said.

At the end March, 2011, the total number of branches was 13,542 while the number of ATMs stood at 20,084 across the country.

Besides, the bank is also looking at expanding its overseas network.

The bank would look at increasing its presence in the neighbouring countries and CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) countries, he said.

SBI now has 156 offices across 32 countries, including the US, the UK, Singapore, Canada and Mauritius.

The focus of these offices is India-related business, he said, adding the overseas operations take care of international needs of the bank's foreign customers, in addition to conducting retail operations.

At present, the bank's overseas business contributes about 16 per cent to the bank's total business.

The number of foreign offices increased from 142 as on March 31, 2010, to 156 as on March 31, 2011, spread across 32 countries.

The offices comprises 45 branches, 8 Representative Offices, 93 offices of the six foreign banking subsidiaries and 10 other offices.