Satyajit Pratap
State Bank of India (SBI) is confident of overshooting its target in the first full year of operations and said it was keeping options open on offering investment banking.
“We may even overshoot the target,” SBI Qatar Financial Centre (QFC) branch CEO Satyajit Pratap said yesterday after announcing the soft launch of its operations in Qatar.
The official inauguration is scheduled for next month.
The QFC branch expects to generate local business worth $80mn-$100mn in its first full year of operation, SBI managing director and group executive (international banking) Hemant Contractor had said earlier this year.
SBI QFC is expecting to acquire a significant market share in the domestic wholesale banking and play a key role in trade finance with special focus in India-Qatar
bilateral trades.
Its business model was based on twin considerations of leveraging the India- Qatar bilateral trade and capitalising on the large number of ongoing project and infrastructure spending in Qatar and other countries in the Gulf region by participating in project financing.
India’s banking behemoth, which has a balance sheet size of more than $274bn, is not only targeting Indian companies but also other regional entities, including Qatar’s, through its array of plain vanilla products, including syndication, loans, letter of credit and bank
guarantees.
SBI QFC is eyeing business customers with minimum asset size of $5mn and retail individuals, who could opt to be business customers, with a minimum wealth of $1mn.
SBI saw a lot of potential and its foray into Qatar was in line with the opportunities in Qatar, which has embarked on multi-billion dollar investments.
Stressing that the bank was also open to offer investment banking in due course, Pratap said it would depend upon the needs. However, he declined to give a time frame but added it may seek a separate license for it, should opportunities arise.