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.
In 1959, the
government passed the State Bank of India (Subsidiary Banks) Act. This made
eight banks that had belonged to Princely states into subsidiaries of SBI.
This was at the time of the first Five Year Plan, which Prioritised the
development of rural India. The government integrated these banks into the
State Bank of India system to expand its rural outreach. In 1963 SBI merged
State Bank of Jaipur (est. 1943) and State Bank of Bikaner (est.1944).
SBI has acquired local
banks in rescues. The first was the Bank of Bihar (est. 1911), which SBI
acquired in 1969, together with its 28 branches. The next year SBI acquired
National Bank of Lahore (est. 1942), which had 24 branches. Five years later,
in 1975, SBI acquired Krishnaram Baldeo Bank, which had been established in
1916 in Gwalior State, under the patronage of Maharaja Madho Rao Scindia.
The bank had been the Dukan Pichadi, a small moneylender, owned by the Maharaja. The new bank's
first manager was Jall N. Broacha, a Parsi. In 1985, SBI acquired the Bank of
Cochin in Kerala, which had 120 branches. SBI was the acquirer as its
affiliate, the State
Bank of Travancore, already had an
extensive network in Kerala.
There has been a
proposal to merge all the associate banks into SBI to create a single very
large bank and streamline operations.[8]
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. 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 approach ₹10
trillion. The total assets of SBI and the State Bank of Indore were ₹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.[10]
On 7 October
2013, Arundhati Bhattacharya became the first
woman to be appointed Chairperson of the bank.[11] Mrs.
Bhattacharya received an extension of two years of service to merge into SBI
the five remaining associated banks.
Structure
The bank is headed by one Chairman , Rajnish
Kumar and four Managing Directors, P.K. Gupta, C.K.
Sinha, Arijit Basu and Anshula Kant.
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 16 regional hubs and 57 zonal offices that are located at important cities throughout India.
Domestic presence[edit]
SBI has 18,354 branches in India.[12] In the financial year 2012–13, its revenue was ₹2.005 trillion (US$28 billion), out of which domestic operations contributed to 95.35% of revenue. Similarly, domestic operations contributed to 88.37% of total profits for the same financial year.[12]
Under the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana of financial inclusion launched by Government in August 2014, SBI held 11,300 camps and opened over 3 million accounts by September, which included 2.1 million accounts in rural areas and 1.57 million accounts in urban areas.[13]
