Staying nonchalant about the nation-wide strike by banks, Arundhati Bhattacharya, the chief of SBI said works to merge all 5 associate banks and Bhartiya Mahila Bank with the state owned lender will get over by end of March 2017. This is an inevitable change. Bankers engage in strike for varied reasons, but they need to be educated and taken on board, she stated at the SBI Exclusif, a wealth management by SBI.
As all the public sector bank employees got into a day long strike against the move to merge SBI associates along with its parent and other issues, banking services in over 80,000 banks were hit across the country.
When asked about the estimated time of completion of this merging, Bhattacharya said it will take till end of this financial year.
Once it is done, this will be among the largest banks in Asia which will turn competitive with other banks across world. It will have asset base of Rs 37 lakh or USD 555 billion.
There era 16,500 bank branches with SBI. This is inclusive of 191 foreign offices present in 36 countries. There are five other associate banks like State Bank of Travancore, State Bank of Mysore, State Bank of Hyderabad, State Bank of Patiala, and State Bank of Bikaner and Jaipur. The banks including State Bank of Patiala and State Bank of Hyderabad are not listed in this. It took 55 weeks for the last merging of associate State Bank of Indore was done. Officials added that it may take lesser time now.
It was in the year 2008 that the first merging by SBI was done with State Bank of Saurashtra. After two years, the State Bank of Indore was merged.
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