SBI plans wealth management services for rich clients

State Bank of India, the country’s largest lender, plans to offer wealth management services to its affluent clients, chairman Om Prakash Bhatt said at the bank’s annual meeting of shareholders.

“We plan to introduce wealth management services in a phased manner in 2010-11 to help the high net-worth clients to preserve and grow their wealth,” Bhatt told shareholders at the 55th annual general meeting.

The bank has more than 10 crore customers and Rs. 8,04,116 crore deposits from more than 12,000 branches across India.

Bhatt also said the bank is entering into the merchant acquiring business in a big way as it sees huge opportunity in this area. It plans to deploy 600,000 point-of-sale terminals over the next five years. The bank will conduct merchant-acquiring business under a separate company and will also rope in a foreign partner in a joint venture for this purpose.

Referring to the infrastructure sector, the bank said it received commitments of $1 billion for its infrastructure fund that it set up along with Macquarie and IFC Washington. SBI’s contribution to the fund is $150 million. We are seeking to raise more funds domestically, said Bhatt.

The Indian government has appointed the bank to operationalise a joint investment fund with a sovereign entity of Oman, he said. “The bank will be shortly signing the necessary agreement in this connection.”