The Indian government has given the green signal to the merger of State Bank of India and its associate lenders, a move that would make the state-owned lender a global-sized bank. SBI had put forward the proposal for a merger of its five subsidiary banks with itself, last month. Its fellow lenders include State Bank of Bikaner and Jaipur, State Bank of Travancore, State Bank of Patiala, State Bank of Mysore and State Bank of Hyderabad.
SBI chairperson Arundhati Bhattacharya said the coalition would be a win-win for all the sides. "Currently, no Indian bank features in the top 50 banks of the world. With this merger, some visibility at global level is likely to increase. Customers of associates and subsidiaries of the Bank will also be beneficiaries," she said. She added that with the merger, the SBI network will increase and its reach will multiply. "Customers of associates and subsidiaries of the Bank will also be beneficiaries. Any introduction of new technology by SBI would simultaneously be available uniformly. The scale of operations and common cost would get rationalised. Overall, the synergies being pooled at one place are going to be a big positive," she said.
The final entity after the merger, will be a banking giant, with an asset base of £370 billion, 22,500 branches, and 58,000 ATMs. It will cover a customer base of 500 million.
