SBI medium-term notes to be listed in Singapore

State Bank of India's (SBI) $1 billion medium-term notes will be listed on the Singapore Stock Exchange. The bank informed the Bombay Stock Exchange today that it has already filed the offering circular for listing. The listing is expected in a week.

Citigroup, HSBC and Deutsche Bank have been appointed arrangers for the first $500 million notes tranche. SBI will be using the funds for its overseas operations.

The country's largest bank is seeing considerable pick-up in credit demand from its overseas clients. The bank also has ambitions plans to expand overseas. With this, SBI becomes the first public sector bank to list on the Singapore Stock Exchange.

Recently ICICI Bank had also floated an MTN to fund its overseas operations. According to analysts, SBI is the only state-owned bank capable of floating MTNs in the near future.

It has a presence in 28 countries through 54 offices. Recently it has opened offices at Sydney, Muscat, Chittagong and Fresno. It plans to expand the overseas network to 70 offices in 36 countries by the end of the current fiscal.

The bank also intends to make acquire small banks in Asia and Africa. The bank recently adopted Infosys Technologies' Finacle software to put its overseas branches on to its core banking network.

The system will replace the current disparate systems across international operations.