State Bank of India will be opening its third branch in Bangladesh shortly. It already has presence in Africa and other Asian countries.
As part of its business expansion strategy, the bank plans to focus on overseas expansion and infrastructure lending in the current fiscal, said A K Purwar, chairman, SBI, in the bank's annual report for 2003-04.
During 2003-04, the bank started its operations in Chittagong, Bangladesh, Port Elizabeth and Capetown in South Africa. In a bid to restructure its US operations, SBI wound up its downtown service branch in New York and relocated its activities with the New York branch.
The banks net profit from overseas operation rose by 21.87 per cent to Rs 156.85 crore (Rs 1.57 billion) in 2003-04 against Rs 128.7 crore (Rs 1.29 billion) in the previous fiscal.
The deposits and gross advances of the foreign offices (excluding subsidiaries and joint ventures) stood at Rs 8,820.46 crore (Rs 88.20 billion) and Rs 15,991.22 crore (Rs 159.91 billion), respectively.
In an effort to step up infrastructure lending, the bank in the current fiscal would focus on core sector such as power, telecom, petroleum, oil, gas, paper boards and hotels, said Purwar.
The bank is also planning to have increased exposure to auto components, rice mills, brassware and agro pumpsets industry. In retail sector, the bank is greatly focussed on contract farming where big companies are involved.
Apart from this, the bank would continue to remain aggressive in retail banking, SMEs and personal banking, he added.
The bank is also undertaking a business process reengineering project with Mckinsey & Co as advisor for the project. The objective of this exercise is to strengthen the banks ability to acquire new customers.
