State Bank of India

Timeline

1. 1806The Bank of Calcutta, later renamed the Bank of Bengal, is established on 2 June, making it the oldest commercial bank in the Indian subcontinent.
2. 1840The Bank of Bombay is established on 15 April as the second of the three presidency banks.
3. 1843The Bank of Madras is established on 1 July as the third presidency bank.
4. 1861The Paper Currency Act takes away the presidency banks' right to issue paper currency.
5. 1864The bank opens its first overseas office in Colombo, Sri Lanka.
6. 1921The Bank of Bengal, Bank of Bombay and Bank of Madras amalgamate on 27 January under the name Imperial Bank of India.
7. 1955The Imperial Bank of India becomes the State Bank of India on 1 July under the State Bank of India Act, with the Reserve Bank of India holding a controlling interest.
8. 1959The State Bank of India (Subsidiary Banks) Act makes eight banks of former princely states subsidiaries of SBI to extend rural reach.
9. 1963State Bank of Jaipur and State Bank of Bikaner are merged into the group.
10. 1969SBI absorbs the Bank of Bihar and its 28 branches in a rescue.
11. 1970The National Bank of Lahore and its 24 branches are taken over.
12. 1975Krishnaram Baldeo Bank of Gwalior is acquired.
13. 1985The Bank of Cochin and its 120 branches are acquired.
14. 1989An offshore bank is set up in Mauritius, which later becomes SBI (Mauritius) Limited.
15. 2001SBI and BNP Paribas form a life insurance joint venture, SBI Life, in a 76 to 24 split.
16. 2008State Bank of Saurashtra merges with SBI, and the government acquires the Reserve Bank of India's stake to end the conflict of interest.
17. 2009State Bank of Indore is absorbed in 2010 after the board clears the merger in June 2009, adding 470 branches.
18. 2009SBI and Macquarie Group set up the Macquarie-SBI Infrastructure Fund for Indian infrastructure projects.
19. 2011SBI and Oman's sovereign fund launch the Oman India Joint Investment Fund as an equal joint venture.
20. 2013Arundhati Bhattacharya takes charge on 7 October as the first woman chairperson of the bank.
21. 2014Under the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana, SBI holds 11,300 camps and opens more than 30 lakh accounts by September.
22. 2017Five associate banks and Bharatiya Mahila Bank merge into SBI on 1 April, taking the bank into the world's fifty largest by assets.
23. 2017SBI launches YONO, its integrated digital banking platform, in November.
24. 2020In an RBI directed rescue, SBI takes a 48.2 per cent stake in Yes Bank in March.
25. 2022SBI opens a dedicated branch for start ups in Bengaluru on 16 August.
26. 2024Challa Sreenivasulu Setty takes charge as chairman in August after Dinesh Kumar Khara's term.
27. 2025The bank sells 13.18 per cent of Yes Bank on 17 September at 21.50 rupees a share, booking a profit of 4,593.22 crore rupees and keeping 10.78 per cent.
28. 2025Phase four of the regional rural bank amalgamation in April reduces SBI's sponsored rural banks from fourteen to nine.
29. 2026The bank reports its highest ever annual profit of 80,032 crore rupees for the year to March 2026, with deposits of 59.76 lakh crore rupees.
30. 2026In the quarter ended 30 June 2026 SBI posts its highest ever quarterly profit of 21,121 crore rupees, up 10 per cent from a year earlier.

What it does

State Bank of India is a universal bank: it takes deposits from households, lends to individuals, farmers, small businesses and large companies, runs a treasury that trades in government securities and currencies, and sells insurance, mutual funds, cards and investment banking through subsidiaries. It is the largest bank in the country by assets and deposits and one of the largest in the world, ranked 163rd in the Fortune Global 500 list of 2025 and 43rd among banks globally by total assets.^[1][2]

The scale is best described with the bank's own numbers for the year ended 31 March 2026. Deposits stood at 59.76 lakh crore rupees, up 11.03 per cent, advances at 49.3 lakh crore rupees, up 16.87 per cent, total business crossed 109 lakh crore rupees, and net profit was 80,032 crore rupees, up 12.88 per cent. The bank serves about 53 crore customers through 23,265 branches, 64,245 ATMs and cash recyclers and nearly 80,000 customer service points.^[2]

The government owns a majority. The Union of India held 55.50 per cent of the equity as on 30 September 2025, and the bank is a statutory body under the State Bank of India Act, 1955, which gives it a hybrid character: a listed company with public shareholders that is also an instrument of state policy for financial inclusion, priority sector lending and government business. The Reserve Bank of India treats it as a domestic systemically important bank, one of the institutions considered too big to fail.^[1]

History

The bank's ancestry runs to the first decade of the nineteenth century. The Bank of Calcutta was established on 2 June 1806 and was later renamed the Bank of Bengal; the Bank of Bombay followed on 15 April 1840 and the Bank of Madras on 1 July 1843. All three were joint stock companies created by royal charter, and they held the exclusive right to issue paper currency until 1861, when the Paper Currency Act transferred that right to the government. The three presidency banks amalgamated on 27 January 1921 to form the Imperial Bank of India, which remained a joint stock company without state participation.^[1]

The modern bank dates from 1955. Under the State Bank of India Act, the Reserve Bank of India acquired a controlling interest in the Imperial Bank of India, which became the State Bank of India on 1 July 1955; the central bank held 60 per cent and the government the rest. In 2008 the Union of India bought the Reserve Bank's stake so that the regulator would not also be a shareholder of the largest bank it supervised.^[1][3]

Expansion after 1955 came through absorption rather than new branches. The State Bank of India (Subsidiary Banks) Act of 1959 turned eight banks of former princely states into subsidiaries, and State Bank of Jaipur and State Bank of Bikaner were merged in 1963. Rescues followed: the Bank of Bihar with 28 branches in 1969, the National Bank of Lahore with 24 branches in 1970, Krishnaram Baldeo Bank of Gwalior in 1975 and the Bank of Cochin with 120 branches in 1985. Over its history the bank has been assembled from more than twenty mergers and acquisitions.^[1]

Overseas, SBI has been present since 1864, when it opened in Colombo. Sri Lanka's oldest bank traces to that branch, and the group now runs subsidiaries and branches in about 29 countries, from SBI Canada Bank and State Bank of India (California), both dating to 1982, to PT Bank SBI Indonesia, SBI (Mauritius) Limited, Nepal SBI Bank, SBI UK Limited and Commercial Indo Bank in Moscow. The annual report for 2025-26 records 245 foreign offices.^[1][2][4]

The associate banks and the 2017 merger

For most of its life SBI shared its name with a family of associate banks: State Bank of Bikaner and Jaipur, State Bank of Hyderabad, State Bank of Mysore, State Bank of Patiala, State Bank of Travancore, State Bank of Saurashtra and State Bank of Indore, all carrying the same keyhole logo. The proposal to merge them into one large bank was discussed from the mid 2000s; State Bank of Saurashtra merged in 2008 and State Bank of Indore in 2010, cutting the associates from seven to five.^[1]

In 2016 the SBI board and the Union Cabinet cleared the merger of the remaining five associates, along with the wholly owned Bharatiya Mahila Bank, and the merger took effect on 1 April 2017. The combined bank entered the list of the world's fifty largest banks by assets, and it also inherited the associates' branch networks, employees and pension liabilities, which is why the wage bill and the integration work dominated the bank's reports for the next two years.^[1][5]

Analysts debated who gained. The case for the merger was scale, a single balance sheet, better capital efficiency and the ability to serve large corporate customers that no associate could handle alone; the case against was that weaker associate balance sheets brought bad loans into the parent and that branch overlaps meant closures. The merged entity kept the branches where they mattered and shut overlapping offices, and the associates' customers were folded into one core banking system.^[5]

Branches, ATMs and how the network runs

The domestic network is administered through 17 local head offices, each covering a circle, under which sit administrative offices and then regional business offices that supervise groups of branches. SBI says it has 23,265 branches in India, of which a large share are in rural and semi urban locations, a legacy of the subsidiary banks that were created to serve princely states and of the 1959 rural expansion policy.^[1][2]

The physical network is still expanding in the places that need it and shrinking where digital banking has taken over routine work. The bank reported 64,245 ATMs and automated deposit and withdrawal machines, including 13,954 cash recyclers, and a 30.62 per cent share of installed ATMs and cash recyclers in the country. Nearly one crore ATM transactions are processed every day, and the bank also runs close to 80,000 customer service points through business correspondents, which is how banking reaches villages where a full branch cannot be justified.^[2]

Foreign offices and the trade finance business sit on top of that domestic base. SBI had 245 foreign branches and offices as on 31 March 2026, 222 correspondent banking relationships, and about three million non resident Indian customers serviced through 434 dedicated or NRI intensive branches at home; remittances are also facilitated through tie ups with 45 exchange houses and five banks in the Middle East.^[2]

Retail banking and home loans

Retail is the biggest part of the loan book. Home loans are the anchor product, and in the year to March 2026 the home loan portfolio's gross non performing assets were 0.60 per cent against 0.72 per cent a year earlier, with priority sector lending accounting for 28.58 per cent of the home loan book. The bank also sells personal loans, car loans, gold loans and education loans, and it runs wealth management through 1,106 relationship managers and 259 wealth hubs covering 117 centres.^[2]

The retail franchise depends on the deposit base as much as on lending. Savings bank accounts are the cheapest funding a bank can get, and SBI says about 63,000 savings accounts were opened every day during the year to March 2026, with more than 64 per cent of new savings accounts opened digitally through YONO in the June 2026 quarter. Its current account and savings account deposits grew 9.53 per cent to 22.62 lakh crore rupees in the year to March 2026, giving a CASA ratio of 39.46 per cent.^[2][6]

In the quarter ended 30 June 2026 retail personal advances rose 15.2 per cent year on year and home loans 12.8 per cent, slower than corporate and SME lending but still respectable in a market where the bank is already the incumbent. Retail growth matters for margins because retail loans are priced higher than corporate loans, and the bank's domestic net interest margin was 3 per cent in that quarter.^[7]

Corporate, SME, agriculture and government business

The corporate bank was built for India's largest borrowers. SBI reported a corporate credit portfolio of 14.25 trillion as on 31 March 2026, with 57 branches of its Corporate Accounts Group and Commercial Clients Group, plus two global trade finance centres at Hyderabad and Kolkata. Corporate advances grew 18.05 per cent in the June 2026 quarter, marginally slower than the previous quarter, while remaining the single largest driver of overall loan growth after retail.^[2][7]

Small and medium enterprises are served through 2,155 relationship managers and 882 SME intensive branches, and the SME portfolio reached 6.12 lakh crore rupees as on 31 March 2026, growing 20.99 per cent during the year. Agriculture advances grew 25 per cent in the June 2026 quarter, helped by a network of rural branches and self help group lending; the bank's self help group portfolio crossed 64,000 crore rupees and reached more than one crore women members, with over 44,000 crore rupees disbursed to eight lakh groups during the year. The bank also opened its first dedicated branch for start ups in Bengaluru in August 2022, aimed at founders who want current accounts, credit and advisory in one place.^[2][6][8]

Government business is a structural advantage. SBI is accredited banker for 26 central government ministries and departments and says it holds the largest market share in government business, accounting for 63 per cent of turnover in the central government sector, which brings in fee income as well as low cost balances. Fee income grew 20.83 per cent to 9,476 crore rupees in the June 2026 quarter, led by a 59.51 per cent jump in loan processing charges and a 50.34 per cent rise in commission on government business.^[2][7]

Digital banking and YONO

YONO, launched in November 2017 as an integrated digital banking platform, is the bank's answer to fintech competition. The annual report for 2025-26 says YONO has more than 10 crore registered users, that a revamped YONO 2.0 was launched to make the experience more personalised, and that alternate channels now carry 98.7 per cent of all transactions. A quarter later the bank reported that about 98.8 per cent of transactions went through alternate channels and that more than 64 per cent of savings accounts were opened digitally through YONO.^[2][6]

The platform has a business edition as well. As on 31 March 2026, YONO Business was supporting about 44 lakh corporates with 59 lakh users, which lets small firms open accounts, avail working capital and handle collections without visiting a branch. SBI also processed 285.17 crore NEFT transactions with a 14.12 per cent market share, 8.55 crore RTGS transactions with a 12.21 per cent share and 106.53 crore IMPS transactions with a 21.68 per cent share during the year, which makes it a piece of national payments infrastructure as much as a bank.^[2]

Digital delivery is also the bank's cost story. The cost to income ratio improved to 50.11 per cent in the year to March 2026 from 51.64 per cent a year earlier, and to 46.71 per cent in the June 2026 quarter, helped by fee income and by keeping the growth in overheads below 10 per cent every quarter. Every routine transaction moved to a channel the customer operates is a teller the bank does not have to hire, which is why digital numbers appear next to the financials in every SBI presentation.^[2][7]

Deposits and the cost of funds

The deposit base is the bank's main competitive advantage. Deposits grew 11.03 per cent to 59.76 lakh crore rupees as on 31 March 2026, with overseas branches contributing over 3.17 lakh crore rupees of that. Current account and savings account deposits grew 9.53 per cent to 22.62 lakh crore rupees and the CASA ratio stood at 39.46 per cent, and the bank noted that savings bank deposits recorded their highest growth in four years.^[2]

Cheap deposits matter because they set the price of every loan. SBI's whole bank net interest margin was 2.86 per cent in the June 2026 quarter, up five basis points from the previous quarter, and domestic net interest margin was 3 per cent, up seven basis points, which the bank managed while term deposits repriced upwards. Management said the bank expects deposit growth of 10 to 11 per cent and credit growth of 14 to 15 per cent in the year to March 2027, and that FCNR(B) inflows are expected to reduce its dependence on costly bulk deposits.^[7][6]

The concentration risk is low, which is unusual for a bank of this size. The twenty largest depositors held 4.51 per cent of total deposits as on 31 March 2026 against 5.21 per cent a year earlier, while the twenty largest borrowers accounted for 9.55 per cent of gross advances. That spread of customers is what allows the bank to fund itself through political and market cycles without the deposit runs that smaller institutions face.^[2]

Revenue and financials

For the year ended 31 March 2026 SBI reported standalone operating profit of 1.23 lakh crore rupees, up 11.25 per cent, and net profit of 80,032 crore rupees, up 12.88 per cent. Net interest income grew 4.08 per cent to 1.73 lakh crore rupees. Return on assets improved to 1.12 per cent from 1.10 per cent, return on equity was 18.57 per cent, and earnings per share were 87.59 rupees. The bank declared a dividend of 17.35 rupees a share, keeping its payout ratio near 20 per cent for the fifth year running.^[2]

The ten year record shows both the crisis and the recovery. Net profit was 10,484 crore rupees in the year to March 2017, a loss of 6,547 crore rupees in the year to March 2018 as bad loans peaked, then 862 crore rupees, 14,488 crore rupees, 20,410 crore rupees, 31,676 crore rupees, 50,232 crore rupees, 61,077 crore rupees and 70,901 crore rupees in the years that followed, reaching 80,032 crore rupees for the year to March 2026. Provisions for bad loans fell from 70,680 crore rupees in 2018 to 15,422 crore rupees in 2026, which is the single clearest explanation of the profit recovery.^[2]

In the quarter ended 30 June 2026 net profit rose 10 per cent year on year to 21,121 crore rupees against 19,160 crore rupees, beating the street estimate of 19,052 crore rupees, and net interest income rose 15 per cent to 46,992 crore rupees. Operating profit was 33,529 crore rupees, total business crossed 110 lakh crore rupees, deposits were above 60 lakh crore rupees and advances crossed 50 lakh crore rupees. Management said derivative and foreign exchange income fell because of a Reserve Bank directive in March 2026 limiting banks' net open position in the rupee, while fee income and treasury earnings held the quarter up.^[6][7]

Asset quality and the bad loan cycle

The hardest years in SBI's recent history were the ones that followed the infrastructure and metals lending boom. Gross non performing assets peaked in the year to March 2018 at 1,26,389 crore rupees, or 4.98 per cent of advances, with net non performing assets at 1.50 per cent and provisions for bad loans at 70,680 crore rupees, which is what produced that year's loss. The bank then went through recognition, provisioning, write offs and recovery, helped by the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code.^[2]

By 31 March 2026 gross non performing assets had fallen to 73,452 crore rupees, or 1.49 per cent, and net non performing assets to 0.39 per cent, with fresh slippages contained at 0.54 per cent and the provision coverage ratio at 74.36 per cent, or 99.01 per cent including accounts under collection. Capital adequacy was 15.40 per cent with tier one capital at 12.29 per cent. In the June 2026 quarter the gross non performing asset ratio improved further to 1.47 per cent and net to 0.38 per cent, with credit cost at 0.27 per cent.^[2][6]

The improvement in asset quality is what turned the same loan book from a loss maker into a profit machine, because money that used to go to provisions now goes to the profit and loss account. It also changes the bank's behaviour: with a clean book and capital above regulatory requirements, SBI has been able to grow advances 16.87 per cent in a single year and to tell the market it expects 14 to 15 per cent credit growth in the year to March 2027.^[2][7]

Shareholding and ownership

The Government of India held 55.50 per cent of SBI's equity as on 30 September 2025, which means the bank must keep the government's stake above 51 per cent unless parliament changes the law, and it also means retail and institutional investors own nearly half of the largest bank in the country. The shares are listed on the BSE, where the bank is a constituent of the Sensex, and on the NSE, where it is part of the Nifty 50, and its global depository receipts are listed on the London Stock Exchange.^[1][9]

Because the government is the majority shareholder, capital raising is a policy decision as much as a market one. SBI has raised money through qualified institutional placements and through internal accruals, and its capital adequacy ratio of 15.40 per cent at March 2026 gives it room that many public sector peers do not have. The other consequence is governance scrutiny: the chairman and managing directors are appointed by the government for fixed terms after the regulator's clearance, which has made the appointment process itself a subject of public debate.^[2][1][10]

The current chairman is Challa Sreenivasulu Setty, who took charge in August 2024, following Dinesh Kumar Khara, whose three year appointment was announced in 2020. The board also includes managing director Ashwini Kumar Tewari and non executive directors including Ketan S. Vikamsey and Rajesh Kumar Dubey, and the bank's chief financial officer is Kameshwar Rao Kodavanti, appointed in 2023.^[2][10][11]

Employees and unions

SBI is one of the largest employers in India, with about 232,296 employees as on 31 March 2024 and nearly 2,60,000 including the group, which puts it among the top employers in the country alongside Indian Railways and the defence services. Women made up 28.5 per cent of the workforce as on March 2026, and 6,129 persons with disabilities were employed. Profit per employee, a measure the bank reports every year, was 32.55 lakh rupees in the year to March 2026 against 29.91 lakh rupees a year earlier.^[1][2][12]

Recruitment runs through centralised exams and the wage bill is negotiated with bank unions. Employee costs are the largest single expense after interest, which is why automation gets so much attention inside the bank: every process moved to YONO or to a cash recycler reduces the marginal cost of serving a customer in a network this size. The bank also runs internal learning through a single platform for all employees and several leadership and engagement programmes.^[2]

The workforce also carries the political weight of a public sector institution. Bank unions have opposed proposals to privatise public sector banks, and the government has so far not sold its stake in SBI, unlike its plan for some smaller state owned banks. The other side of the same coin is that SBI is expected to absorb government schemes quickly, which the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana camps of 2014 showed: thousands of camps and lakhs of new accounts in weeks.^[1]

Insurance, cards, mutual funds and investment banking

SBI's subsidiaries make it a financial conglomerate, not just a bank. It had 26 subsidiaries as on March 2026, and the group's combined net profit was 83,299 crore rupees, up 7.40 per cent over the previous year. SBI Life Insurance is the largest private life insurer with SBI holding 55.33 per cent and assets of 5,00,046 crore rupees, assets under management of 4,87,163 crore rupees, new business premium of 42,551 crore rupees and a market share of 21.4 per cent among private insurers. SBI General Insurance, in which SBI raised its stake to 73.87 per cent in August 2025, stands fifth among private general insurers.^[2]

SBI Cards and Payment Services, in which the bank holds 68.58 per cent, is the second largest player in credit cards and third in spends, and SBI Funds Management is the largest player in the mutual fund industry. On the investment banking side, SBI Capital Markets, incorporated in 1986, is a category one merchant banker offering project advisory, loan syndication, structured debt placement and mergers and acquisitions advice, with a profit of 593.62 crore rupees in the year, while SBICAP Trustee earned 34.76 crore rupees. SBI DFHI holds 69.04 per cent with the bank and deals in government securities.^[2]

The group also runs development finance vehicles. The Macquarie-SBI Infrastructure Fund was set up in 2009 with Macquarie Group to invest in Indian infrastructure, and the Oman India Joint Investment Fund, an equal joint venture with Oman's sovereign wealth fund, was launched in 2011 and later looked to raise close to 19,800 crore rupees in its second fund. Those vehicles are how SBI participates in equity investment in projects that a bank cannot hold on its own balance sheet.^[13][14]

Overseas operations

SBI's foreign network is built around trade finance, non resident Indian deposits and remittances. It had 245 foreign offices as on 31 March 2026 across about 29 countries, with overseas assets of 9,33,745 crore rupees and overseas revenue of 41,800 crore rupees. Foreign office advances grew 21 per cent in rupee terms and 10 per cent in dollar terms in the June 2026 quarter, a reminder that the overseas book moves with the rupee as much as with credit demand.^[2][6]

The subsidiaries are long established. SBI Canada Bank and State Bank of India (California) were incorporated in 1982, SBI (Mauritius) Limited has 14 branches, Nepal SBI Bank is 55 per cent owned with the Employees Provident Fund of Nepal and the public holding the rest, and the bank bought out Canara Bank's 40 per cent in Commercial Indo Bank in Moscow in 2022. SBI opened its first branch in Seoul in January 2016, and the bank's London operations were converted into a ring fenced UK subsidiary, SBI UK Limited.^[1][4]

The rupee's weakness and the cost of overseas funding both show up here. FCNR(B) deposits, which non resident Indians hold in foreign currency, became an important funding tool: management said the bank had mobilised almost six billion dollars of FCNR(B) deposits by the June 2026 quarter and expected to reach about ten billion dollars, and that these inflows would ease pressure on bulk deposit pricing.^[7]

The Yes Bank rescue and other investments

SBI's most discussed investment of the last decade is Yes Bank. In March 2020, as part of a rescue directed by the Reserve Bank of India, SBI subscribed to 48.2 per cent of the reconstructed private bank, alongside other banks and financial institutions. SBI put in money at ten rupees a share in a rescue that protected depositors and prevented a wider loss of confidence in the system, and by February 2024 its holding had fallen to 26.13 per cent as other investors came in.^[1][15]

The exit came in stages. On 17 September 2025 SBI sold 13.18 per cent of Yes Bank, 4,13,44,04,897 shares, at 21.50 rupees a share, booking a profit of 4,593.22 crore rupees which it reported as an exceptional item and moved to capital reserve. Its holding stood at 10.78 per cent as on 31 March 2026 and Yes Bank remained an associate. Each block deal was watched closely because a large sale by SBI moves the bank's share price and the price of Yes Bank itself.^[2][16]

SBI has made and unwound other investments in the same period. It divested its entire stake in Jio Payments Bank in June 2025, and it was one of nine banks that took part in the Yes Bank reconstruction. It also holds minority stakes in associate and affiliate institutions, including a 20 per cent holding in Bank of Bhutan, and sponsors nine regional rural banks across nine states after the 2025 amalgamation round reduced the number from fourteen.^[2]

Awards and recognition

SBI collects a long list of awards, some of which say more about its balance sheet than about its service. It won the Economic Times Company of the Year award at the Economic Times Awards for Corporate Excellence 2023, which was received by chairman Dinesh Kumar Khara, and it was named the world's best consumer bank for 2025 and best bank in India for 2025 by Global Finance. The bank also appears in the Fortune Global 500, ranked 163rd in the 2025 list, and it is counted among the 43 largest banks in the world by assets.^[1]

The logo is one of the few pieces of Indian corporate design of that era that has survived unchanged in memory. It was designed by the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad in 1971, with the symbol by Shekhar Kamat and the logotype in fourteen Indian languages by Mahendra Patel, and the blue keyhole was used by SBI and all its former associate banks until the merger.^[1]

Philanthropy and financial inclusion

SBI Foundation is the bank's corporate social responsibility arm, working on healthcare and sanitation, education, empowerment of women and senior citizens, environment and protection of national heritage, within the framework set by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs. Alongside grants, the bank treats inclusion as a business line: it opened 15.6 crore accounts under the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana through the business correspondent channel, and it runs social security scheme enrolments that are measured against annual government targets.^[2]

Insurance claims reveal the practical side of that work. The bank settled 3,246 insurance claims totalling 1,807.69 crore rupees during the year to March 2026, including claims of customers who died in service or accidents, and it also runs a hardship scheme for families of borrowers. Its environmental commitments include lending to renewable energy projects and reducing its own energy footprint across branches and offices.^[2]

Controversies and criticism

The biggest criticism SBI has faced in the last decade is about its bad loans. Lenders including SBI were accused of not recognising stressed accounts early enough during the infrastructure boom, and the resulting provisioning cycle turned the year to March 2018 into a loss of 6,547 crore rupees. Investigations into specific large borrowers, including cases that went to the Central Bureau of Investigation, put the bank's lending to those groups under scrutiny even where SBI itself was treated as a complainant rather than an accused.^[2]

The Yes Bank rescue involves a different kind of controversy. SBI was required by the regulator to step in as the largest shareholder of a failing private bank, which exposed it to criticism from shareholders who argued that public sector money was being used to clean up a private bank's problems, and from those who argued the rescue itself was necessary to protect depositors. SBI's position has been that the investment was made at the regulator's direction, that the entry price was low, and that the eventual exit produced a profit.^[2][15]

There are quieter controversies too. The Reserve Bank's directive in March 2026 limiting banks' net open position in the rupee in the onshore market cut into derivative income for SBI and its peers, and management acknowledged the impact publicly. Appointment and succession at the top of the bank draw political attention because the chairman is chosen by the government, and the bank's sheer size means its decisions on lending rates are read as signals for the whole banking system.^[7][10]

Reading the numbers

Four figures carry most of the meaning for SBI. Net profit of 80,032 crore rupees for the year to March 2026 shows how far the bank has moved from the loss of the year to March 2018. Deposits of 59.76 lakh crore rupees and advances of 49.3 lakh crore rupees show the size of the franchise and the fact that loan growth has outrun deposit growth, which is why the bank talks about funding costs in every quarter. And the government's 55.50 per cent holding tells you who controls the bank, how its capital will be raised and why its chairman is a political appointment.^[2]

Two reading cautions. First, a bank's profit is not comparable with a manufacturer's, because a large part of it moves when provisions move, so the asset quality numbers, gross non performing assets at 1.49 per cent and net at 0.39 per cent, matter as much as the profit line. Second, the effects of the 2017 associate bank merger still appear in comparisons across those years, and the capital adequacy ratio, 15.40 per cent at March 2026 and 15.67 per cent in the June 2026 quarter, is the number that decides how much more the bank can lend.^[2][7]

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