SBI to enter wealth mgmt business in phased manner this fiscal

MUMBAI: India's largest lender, State Bank of India (SBI), plans to foray into the wealth management business in the current fiscal with a view to tap high networth clients, a top bank official said.

"We plan to introduce wealth management services in a phased manner in the current fiscal," SBI's Chairman, O P Bhatt, told shareholders at its annual general meeting held here today.

The bank is also scouting for a global partner for its merchant acquiring business which it plans to run under a separate company.

"It is proposed to conduct the merchant acquiring business under a separate company with an experienced and reputed global partner," he said.

The public sector lender also plans to deploy 6 lakh point-of-service (PoS) terminals during the next 5 years across rural and urban areas, Bhatt said

This initiative will facilitate SBI's debit card acceptance pan-India, he said.

SBI will also shortly sign an agreement to operationalise a joint investment fund in collaboration with sovereign entities of Oman, the SBI chief said.

Presently, the SBI group has a network of 17,337 branches which includes 4,841 branches of its six associate banks.