State Bank of India to Close Down Six Overseas Branches

The State Bank of India (SBI) is going to shut six non-viable foreign branches in China, Sri Lanka, Oman, Saudi Arabia, France and Botswana by 2019, following orders from the Finance Ministry, DNA reported.

The processes of closing have been started for the Tianjin branch in China and Jeddah in Saudi Arabia. The Tianjin branch will be closed by Sept. 30, 2018 while the Jeddah branch will be shut by June 30 this year. The branch at Muscat in Oman will be closed by March 31 2019. The dates for closure of the SBI branches in Paris and Botswana are Sept. 30, 2018, and March 31, 2019, respectively. The one at Jaffna in Sri Lanka will also be closed by Sept. 30, 2018, the report said.

Over 10 other branches of the SBI are under review. The bank’s branch in Tel Aviv in Israel would continue to be in  operation since its presence is required due to strategic reasons such as bilateral trade linked to defense procurement.

Eleven branches will, also be studied further for various reasons, according to the report. These branches are at Manama, Bahrain; Ilford, United Kingdom; Gulshan, Bangladesh; Seoul, South Korea; Yangon, Myanmar and California in the United States.

The Department of Financial Services (DFS), a wing of the Finance Ministry, has asked for an immediate implementation of the reforms agenda, the publication said, adding that SBI had a meeting with officials of Bank of Baroda and Bank of India to identify geographies for consolidation of overseas operations.

SBI has also decided to depart from non-core businesses in three years in a bid to improve its financial health. The largest Indian public sector bank is present in 37 countries and serves the largest number of Non-Resident Indians. In 2017.

The bank recently started a global NRI center at Kochi, Kerala, to centralize its NRI operations, spread across various states and branches. Kerala is among the states that receive the highest amount of remittances in the country. The Kochi center will act as a single point of contact for SBI branches, customers, relationship managers, representative offices and foreign offices.