SBI cleared $1bn loan in 5 minutes: Bhatt

Claiming that no bank in the world could match its speed in decision making, O P Bhatt, chairman, State Bank of India (SBI), today said the bank cleared a loan of $1 billion loan for the Tatas in just five minutes - a philosophy that has put it much ahead of competitors on overseas mergers and acquisitions (M&As) deals.

"SBI has become so nimble that when Tata-Corus did not get that last bit of $1 billion funding, we sanctioned it in five minutes. Recently, we have done Rs 12,000 crore. No bank in the world can do this kind of funding in 5-10 minutes. We have been doing it," Bhatt told PTI.

SBI, which has evinced interest in overseas acquisitions of a big entity, is already the highest contributor in foreign asset building and M&As during the first quarter this year and would remain so in the next quarter.

Asked if he feared that ICICI Bank could replace it as the top player in the arena, Bhatt said: "I am not apprehensive about the rise of ICICI Bank... its CEO K V Kamath has gone on record that he is not competing with SBI and that he does not want to overtake SBI. He is the same person who was saying that he will overtake SBI."

On reports that ICICI had overtaken the public sector lender on foreign asset building recently, Bhatt asserted that SBI was ahead of the competitors. "Even in terms of foreign assets, ICICI Bank has not overtaken us. It has not overtaken in absolute terms but in percentage terms," he added.

Referring to the slew of measures taken by SBI during his tenure as chairman, Bhatt said: "As such we are the market leaders and the latest initiatives would only enhance our leadership position. Till some time back, people did not know we were in this business (M&A deals). Now they know, and are coming to us for their funding requirements."

The bank, which boasts of the largest network of branches in India, was ahead of any other institution in the country in terms of funding for infrastructure. SBI has so far sanctioned in excess of Rs 38,000 crore. We are larger than any other bank or financial institution, including IDFC, which was especially created for infrastructure funding. There also we are playing the lead role and would like to continue as the leader," he said.

When asked about raising funds for infrastructure, Bhatt said raising money for infrastructure projects was not going to be a problem even when the requirement is over $500 billion in the next five years.

Bhatt, however, sounded a word of caution, saying though liquidity would not be so much of issue, but funding of infrastructure projects could be constrained by prudential requirements.

(Reporting by Chandra Shekhar and Rakesh Pathak)