SBI wins Asian Banker award

The State Bank has won the prestigious Asian Banker Achievement Award for being the strongest bank in Asia Pacific region, instituted by the Qatar Financial Centre Authority and the Asian Banker magazine.

The award is in recognition to SBI's combination of financial performance and key business improvements, making it the region's strongest bank with strong and steady income growth rates of 29 per cent, 14 per cent and 28 per cent for the past three years, the magazine said in the award citation.

Already the largest bank in a the second fastest growing large economy, the state-owned lender has attracted customers and talent from the private sector and other state-owned banks, as well as market share in deposits and loans, the citation added.

The award looks at the long-term performance of banks by assessing them over a three-year period, and plays an important role in cultivating a culture of excellence among leaders and senior management in the banking industry in Asia and the Gulf Region.

The SBI has also won the Asian Banker transaction banking award: Winner of achievement award for trade finance in India. In the past two years, SBI became the largest bank by market capitalisation.

As a key development project, the bank has launched a new core banking system and multiple IT reinvigoration project, while speeding up a programme to integrate subsidiary banks, all improvements which help make SBI the strongest bank in the region and the one to watch for the years to come.

"We are happy to have received these awards which are a testimony to our untiring efforts over the past few years. The contribution of the international business to our balancesheet is substantial and we have set ourselves the target of increasing this to 25 per cent in three years. I can say that we aspire to be amongst the top five banks in Asia quite soon," chairman Om Prakash Bhatt reacting to the award.