A demand to relocate the foreign exchange division of State Bank of India (SBI) to Kolkata back from Mumbai has been made by CPM member of Parliament Nilotpal Basu to finance minister Yashwant Sinha.
Basu quoted Sinha as having said that he will consider the request favourably. According to Basu the SBI foreign exchange division was shifted to Mumbai in 1998 on the plea that this will help it to quote the best rates to the customers.
By operating from Kolkata, SBI had claimed it was not able to compete with the other merchant bankers as it was not able to operate a centralised treasury, and combine money and forex operations.
But according to him the decline in the aggregate profit of SBI is partly attributable to the loss the bank has suffered in the forex business. Besides while over the past six years the industry growth of customers has been 12.94 per cent, SBI
