Government Will Merge Bharatiya Mahila Bank With SBI
The government will merge the Bharatiya Mahila Bank (BMB) with India's largest lender State Bank of India (SBI) to ensure greater banking outreach to women.
The decision “has been taken in view of the advantage of the large network of SBI among other things”, the finance ministry said in a media statement.
SBI group already has 126 exclusive all-woman branches across the country while BMB has only seven. The proportion of administrative and managerial costs in BMB is much higher to reach the same coverage. For the same cost, a much higher volume of loans to women could be given through SBI.A Finance Ministry Statement
The Bharatiya Mahila Bank was founded in 2013 in order to drive economic empowerment of women. It has 103 branches, seven of which are run by an all-woman staff. In the first three years of its existence, the bank has disbursed loans worth Rs 192 crore to women borrowers, the ministry's statement said.
SBI has already received Cabinet's approval to merge its five associate banks with itself, and will complete the merger on April 1. It will take India's largest bank's total deposits to over Rs 26 lakh crore. The combined entity will have a balance sheet size of over Rs 32 lakh crore.
The merger with Bharatiya Mahila Bank will not impact SBI's business significantly, but will reinforce its focus on financing women entrepreneurs, the public sector lender said in a separate statement. India's largest lender has a loan exposure of more than Rs 46,000 crore to its women customers, the statement said.
SBI said it is awaiting a formal notification from the government on the merger with the Bharatiya Mahila Bank.
Also Read: SBI Merger With Five Associate Banks From April 1
-
A New Samvat Wishlist: Inclusive Prosperity And Human Development
India has strengthened its economic foundations through infrastructure, digital access and enterprise. Its next growth chapter must deepen productivity, create better livelihoods and widen participation in prosperity.
-
Love, Sex Aur Dhokha: The Audacious Plot To Spy On Jensen Huang
A Taipei dinner, a Singapore chip buyer and a suspected Chinese asset: inside the alleged spy operation that got close to NVIDIA's Jensen Huang.
-
Ten Things I Learnt This Samvat
Patience can be a trap. Cheap stocks can stay cheap. Leverage can wipe you out. What did Samvat 2082 teach us? Niraj Shah writes on 10 lessons from the year gone by.
-
Talking Points This Week: Tech Nerves, FII Buying, And A Faraway Banking Shock
The global markets are not shining this Diwali. The exception in the large markets is, India.
-
Midterm Rally Lasted A Day. The Hard Reality Of A Divided US May Last Two Years | Opinion
Between a contested AI boom, a debt ceiling that arrives in 2027 and a president with every incentive to act alone, the next two years may prove more volatile than the first day's rally suggests.
-
Blue Wave Will Derail the AI Trade but Won't Dismantle the AI Era | Unhedged Position
The Democrats' sweep of the US Congress will see politics collide with economic forces both over the long and short term.
-
It's Time To Take The GST Council's Bet On Trust Global
Payment records can prove India's services exports, and clear, proportionate rules can bring foreign digital sellers into the tax net.
-
Opinion | India at 38: From Innovation Overperformer to Innovation Powerhouse
India now has 453 VC-backed deep science startups, 18 of them late-stage, after 117 percent growth since 2020. Laurus Labs, at USD 9.3 billion, is the most valuable deep science company in any middle-income economy outside China.
-
Navigating Energy Crossroads: S Jaishankar's Call For Diversified Supply Chains At G20 Ministerial Meeting
As geopolitical fault lines continue to test maritime trade routes and commodity flows, Jaishankar's message remains pertinent: true economic resilience requires open markets, protected transit lines, and a genuine commitment to multilateral cooperation rather than coercion.
