SBI aims to become dominant bank in Mauritius

State Bank of India, the country's largest lender, plans to be a dominant foreign bank in selected nations, including Mauritius.     

"Plans are in place to be the dominant foreign bank in few identified countries such as Mauritius, Singapore and Nepal," a senior SBI official told PTI.     

SBI targets a major share in India-related business in high potential markets world wide.     

In tune with the objective, two of the bank's subsidiaries in Mauritius were merged last fiscal to create a new entity called SBI (Mauritius) Ltd, he said.     

The bank's two partly owned subsidiaries in Mauritius namely Indian Ocean International Bank Ltd and SBI International (Mauritius) Ltd were merged during the year to create a new entity SBI (Mauritius) Ltd.     

The scheme of merger has been sanctioned by Bank of Mauritius from April 1, 2008, he said.     

Consequently, the SBI's stake in SBI (Mauritius) Ltd has reduced from 98 per cent to 93.40 per cent after the merger, he said.     

At the same time, SBI also increased its stake in the Nepal joint venture to 55 per cent from 50 per cent earlier. SBI bought 5 per cent stake of Nepal SBI Ltd through a competitive bid process from Agricultural Development Bank.