The State Bank of India (SBI) is an Indian multinational, public sector banking and financial services statutory body. It is a government corporation statutory body headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra. SBI is ranked as 236th in the Fortune Global 500 list of the world’s biggest corporations of 2019. It is the largest bank in India with a 23% market share in assets, besides a share of one-fourth of the total loan and deposits market.
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 in 1955. The Government 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 the State Bank of India.
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.
