Public sector lender State Bank of India (SBI) is looking to acquire banks in Africa and Southeast Asia as it seeks to ramp up its overseas operations. The country’s top lender planned to spend roughly $200 million on overseas acquisitions and would mainly focus on banks with strong corporate banking services in the two regions.
SBI is aiming to raise the contribution of international operations to the group net profit to 25 per cent over the next five years, from about 16 per cent now. SBI’s international loan book grew nearly 18 per cent from a year ago to touch $24.6 billion as of end-December. The bank’s total loan book stood at $164 billion as of end-December.crackcrack
