State Bank of India

State Bank of India is an Indian multinational, public sector banking and financial services company. It is a government-owned corporation with its headquarters in Mumbai, Maharashtra. As of 2014-15, it has assets of INR 20,48,080 crores and 16,333 branches, including 191 foreign offices spread across 36 countries, making it the largest banking and financial services company in India by assets. State Bank of India is one of the Big Four banks of India, along with Bank of Baroda, Punjab National Bank and ICICI Bank.The bank traces its ancestry to British India, through the Imperial Bank of India, to the founding, in 1806, of the Bank of Calcutta, making it the oldest commercial bank in the Indian Subcontinent. Bank of Madras merged into the other two "presidency banks" in British India, Bank of Calcutta and Bank of Bombay, to form the Imperial Bank of India, which in turn became the State Bank of India.Government of India owned the Imperial Bank of India in 1955, with Reserve Bank of India (India's Central Bank) taking a 60% stake, and renamed it the State Bank of India. In 2008, the government took over the stake held by the Reserve Bank of India.State Bank of India is a regional banking behemoth and has 20% market share in deposits and loans among Indian commercial banks.

History

The roots of the State Bank of India lie in the first decade of the 19th century, when the Bank of Calcutta, later renamed the Bank of Bengal, was established on 2 June 1806. The Bank of Bengal was one of three Presidency banks, the other two being the Bank of Bombay (incorporated on 15 April 1840) and the Bank of Madras (incorporated on 1 July 1843). All three Presidency banks were incorporated as joint stock companies and were the result of royal charters. These three banks received the exclusive right to issue paper currency till 1861 when, with the Paper Currency Act, the right was taken over by the Government of India. The Presidency banks amalgamated on 27 January 1921, and the re-organised banking entity took as its name Imperial Bank of India. The Imperial Bank of India remained a joint stock company but without Government participation.Pursuant to the provisions of the State Bank of India Act of 1955, the Reserve Bank of India, which is India's central bank, acquired a controlling interest in the Imperial Bank of India. On 1 July 1955, the imperial Bank of India became the State Bank of India. In 2008, the Government of India acquired the Reserve Bank of India's stake in SBI so as to remove any conflict of interest because the RBI is the country's banking regulatory authority.The first step towards unification occurred on 13 August 2008 when State Bank of Saurashtra merged with SBI, reducing the number of associate state banks from seven to six. Then on 19 June 2009 the SBI board approved the absorption of State Bank of Indore. SBI holds 98.3% in State Bank of Indore. (Individuals who held the shares prior to its takeover by the government hold the balance of 1.7%.)The acquisition of State Bank of Indore added 470 branches to SBI's existing network of branches. Also, following the acquisition, SBI's total assets will inch very close to the ₹10 trillion mark (10 billion long scale). The total assets of SBI and the State Bank of Indore stood at ₹9,981,190 million as of March 2009. The process of merging of State Bank of Indore was completed by April 2010, and the SBI Indore branches started functioning as SBI branches on 26 August 2010.On October 7, 2013, Arundhati Bhattacharya became the first woman to be appointed Chairperson of the bank

Operations

SBI provides a range of banking products through its network of branches in India and overseas, including products aimed at non-resident Indians (NRIs). SBI has 14 regional hubs and 57 Zonal Offices that are located at important cities throughout India.
International presence
As of 2014-15, the bank had 191 overseas offices spread over 36 countries having the largest presence in foreign markets among domestic banks.[7] It has branches of the parent in Moscow, Colombo, Dhaka, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, Tehran, Johannesburg, London, Los Angeles, Male in the Maldives, Muscat, Dubai, New York, Osaka, Sydney, and Tokyo. It has offshore banking units in the Bahamas, Bahrain, and Singapore, and representative offices in Bhutan and Cape Town.The Canadian subsidiary, State Bank of India (Canada) also dates to 1982. It has seven branches, four in the Toronto area and three in the Vancouver area. SBI operates several foreign subsidiaries or affiliates. In 1990, it established an offshore bank: State Bank of India (Mauritius). SBI (Mauritius) has 15 branches in major cities/towns of the country including Rodrigues.SBI Sri Lanka now has three branches located in Colombo, Kandy and Jaffna. The Jaffna branch was opened on 9 September 2013. SBI Sri Lanka, the oldest bank in Sri Lanka, celebrated its 150th year in Sri Lanka on 1 July 2014. State Bank of India (S.B.I.) Branch at Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong In 1982, the bank established a subsidiary, State Bank of India (California), which now has ten branches – nine branches in the state of California and one in Washington, D.C. The 10th branch was opened in Fremont, California on 28 March 2011. The other eight branches in California are located in Los Angeles, Artesia, San Jose, Canoga Park, Fresno, San Diego, Tustin and Bakersfield. In Nepal, SBI owns 49% of SBI Nepal (State Bank in Nepal) share with Nepal Government owing the rest and SBI NEPAL has branches throughout the country in each and every city as banking has become the major part of daily life for Nepalese people. In Moscow, SBI owns 60% of Commercial Bank of India, with Canara Bank owning the rest. In Indonesia, it owns 76% of PT Bank Indo Monex. The State Bank of India already has a branch in Shanghai and plans to open one in Tianjin. In Kenya, State Bank of India owns 76% of Giro Commercial Bank, which it acquired for US$8 million in October 2005. In January 2016, SBI opened it's first branch in Seoul,South Korea following the continuous and significant increase in trade due to the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement signed between New Delhi and Seoul in 2009.

Employees

SBI is one of the largest employers in the country having 222,033 employees as on 31 March 2014, out of which there were 45,132 female employees (20%) and 2,610 (1%) employees with disabilities. On the same date, SBI had 42,744 Schedule Caste (19%) and 17,243 Schedule Tribe (8%) employees. The percentage of Officers, Assistants and Sub-staff was 36%, 46% and 18% respectively on the same date Hiring drive: 1,776 Assistants and 1,394 Officers joined the Bank in FY 2013-14, for expansion of the branch network and to mitigate staff shortage, particularly at rural and semi-urban branches. Staff productivity: As per its Annual Report for FY 2013-14, each employee contributed net profit of INR 4.85 lakhs.