SBI eyes 30% growth in Q2

Mumbai

Sept. 8: The State Bank of India (SBI) expects that its profit would grow at a rate of 30 per cent in the current quarter.
Speaking with mediapersons on the sidelines of a conference organised by Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industries (Ficci) and Indian Banks’ Association (IBA) on Tuesday in Mumbai, Mr O.P. Bhatt, the chairman of SBI, said: “We are on the growth track and the disbursement of retail loans would double during this quarter (second quarter of the fiscal 2010) compared with the same period last year. For achieving the GDP growth rate of above six per cent, a strong support of the banking system is a must.”
Mr Bhatt said: “About 200 years ago, the cumulative share of India and China in global GDP was 60 per cent and this is going to happen once again in future. The Indian banking system’s biggest advantage is that it has one of the lowest transaction cost. The biggest hurdle is the smaller scale of operations.”
He said: “Though SBI is the largest bank in India, it can’t cater the big Indian corporates alone. We need at least three to four banks that would be five times bigger than SBI. To compare with the China it has four banks that are in the top 20 in the world while India has none. The largest Chinese bank is 10 times bigger than the SBI.”
Banks need to consolidate to meet the funding needs of the economy, he added.