SBI eyes profitable expansion outside home

State Bank of India (SBI) will open more branches in Nepal and consider options to re-enter Vietnam under a three-year goal to grow its international operations to as much as 15% of total business, a senior executive said.

India’s top lender, with assets of more than $500 billion, was catapulted into the league of the top 50 global banks this year after it merged five subsidiary banks with itself. But M&As are expected to play only a tiny role as SBI seeks to ramp up growth in the overseas business, which now makes up about 11 percent of all operations. Instead, it will rely on organic growth and ensure profitability is not forsaken.

SBI, which is present in 35 countries but has more than half of its 206 offices in Asia, aims to increase the number of offices in neighbouring Nepal to 100 in the next one year from 88 currently to better tap a market it considers “under-penetrated” for banking, said Siddhartha Sengupta, a deputy MD, who leads the bank’s international business.

The bank is also looking at options to re-enter Vietnam, where it closed its office long ago, possibly through a partnership, Sengupta said, noting the Vietnamese economy, and trade between the Southeast Asian nation and India, were growing rapidly.

“We had an Asian focus. But we are trying to make that focus sharper,” Sengupta said in an interview with Reuters.

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