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State Bank of India

Indian public sector bank

  • 11 min read
  • 7 chapters

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The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has identified SBI, HDFC Bank, and ICICI Bank as domestic systemically important banks (D-SIBs), which are often referred to as banks that are "too big to fail". SBI is the 43rd largest bank in the world by total assets and ranked 163rd in the Fortune Global 500 list of the world's biggest corporations of 2025.

The bank descends from the Bank of Calcutta, founded in 1806 via the Imperial Bank of India, making it the oldest commercial bank in the Indian subcontinent. The Bank of Madras merged into the other two presidency banks in British India, the Bank of Calcutta and the Bank of Bombay, to form the Imperial Bank of India, which in turn became the State Bank of India on 1 July 1955. Over the course of its 200-year history, the bank has been formed from the mergers and acquisitions of more than twenty banks. The Union of India took control of the Imperial Bank of India in 1955, with Reserve Bank of India (India's central bank) taking a 60% stake, renaming it State Bank of India.

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 (est. 15 April 1840) and the Bank of Madras (est. 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 Union 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.

Under the provisions of the State Bank of India Act, 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 Union of India acquired the Reserve Bank of India's stake in SBI 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 during 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 the 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 the 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 King Madho Rao Scindia. The bank had been the Dukan Pichadi, a small moneylender, owned by the Maharaja. 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.

In March 2001, SBI partnered with BNP Paribas to form a 76:24 joint venture life insurance company named SBI Life Insurance Company.

The proposal to merge all the associate banks into SBI to create a single very large bank and streamline operations started in the mid-2000s.

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, in which SBI held 98.3%. The acquisition of State Bank of Indore added 470 branches to SBI's existing network of branches. The process of merging of State Bank of Indore was completed in 2010.

In 2009, SBI and Macquarie Group established the Macquarie-SBI Infrastructure Fund to invest in infrastructure projects in India. In 2011, SBI and Oman's sovereign wealth fund SGRF launched a 50:50 joint venture private equity firm called the Oman India Joint Investment Fund.

On 07 October 2013, Arundhati Bhattacharya became the first woman to be appointed chairperson of the bank.

Under the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana of financial inclusion launched by Government in August 2014, SBI held 11,300 camps and opened over 30 lakh (3 million) accounts by September, which included 21 lakh (2.1 million) accounts in rural areas and 15.7 lakh (1.57 million) accounts in urban areas.

In 2016, the board of SBI and the Union Cabinet cleared the proposal to merge the remaining five associate banks (State Bank of Bikaner and Jaipur, State Bank of Hyderabad, State Bank of Mysore, State Bank of Patiala, and State Bank of Travancore) and SBI's fully owned subsidiary Bharatiya Mahila Bank with SBI. The merger would see SBI entering the list of world's 50 largest banks by assets. The merger went into effect on 1 April 2017.

In March 2020, as part of an RBI-directed rescue deal, the State Bank of India acquired a 48.2% stake in Yes Bank. As of 8 February 2024, the shareholding had decreased to 26.13%.

On 16 August 2022, in an attempt to facilitate and support India's start-ups, SBI launched a dedicated branch for start-ups in Banglore.

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