Finance minister Arun Jaitley introduces Bill to facilitate SBI’s merger with arms

Finance minister Arun Jaitley on Friday introduced a bill in the Lok Sabha to repeal certain Acts, a move that was legally necessary in the wake of the merger of State Bank of India (SBI) with its subsidiary banks from April 1 this year. The finance minister introduced the State Banks (Repeal and Amendment) Bill, 2017 to repeal the State Bank of India (Subsidiary Banks) Act, 1959 and the State Bank of Hyderabad Act, 1956. In February, the Cabinet had also approved the merger of five associate banks with SBI, paving the way for the first such wide-scale consolidation exercise to create a banking behemoth. The merger of these subsidiaries —State Bank of Bikaner and Jaipur, State Bank of Hyderabad, State Bank of Travancore, State Bank of Mysore and State Bank of Patiala— with SBI became effective from April 1. Even the Bhartiya Mahila Bank was also merged with SBI.The merger resulted in SBI’s customer base swelling to 37 crore, with a branch network of around 24,000 and nearly 59,000 ATMs across India. The merged entity started operation with a deposit base of more than Rs 26 lakh crore and loans level of Rs 18.50 lakh crore.

State Bank of India