Bharatiya Mahila Bank to be merged with SBI from Apr 1

This, to ensure greater banking outreach to women

Bharatiya Mahila Bank (BMB) will be merged with the country's largest lender State Bank from April 1 to ensure greater banking outreach to women.

"It (merger) shall come into effect on April 1, 2017," a government gazette notification said.

The undertaking of the BMB as it stood immediately before the effective date shall, without any further act, instrument or deed, stand transferred to, and vest in SBI, it said.

Following the notification, SBI proposes to seek the approval of executive committee of central board on March 24.

Every permanent and regular officer or other permanent and regular employee of the BMB (except the Board of Directors) serving in the employment immediately before the effective date will become employee of the SBI, it said.

The merger of BMB with paid up capital of Rs 1,000 crore was done three years after it was formed.

The Union Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has already cleared the merger of the two banks.

Explaining the rationale behind the merger, the finance ministry said the SBI group already has 126 exclusive all-women branches across the country while the BMB has only seven.

In the three years since the BMB was established, it has extended loans of Rs 192 crore to women borrowers while the SBI group has provided loans of about Rs 46,000 crore to women borrowers.

The SBI has a large outreach of more than 20,000 branches and lowest cost of funds in the sector. Of the total workforce of around 2 lakh employees in the SBI, 22 per cent are women.

The BMB, set up in 2013, has 103 branches with its presence in almost all the states. The total business of the bank is about Rs 1,600 crore.

The Union Cabinet had last month approved amalgamation of five associate banks of SBI with the parent and their integration will start from April 1 as part of the largest consolidation exercise in the banking history of India.

The branches of 5 associate banks -- State Bank of Bikaner and Jaipur, State Bank of Hyderabad, State Bank of Mysore, State Bank of Patiala and State Bank of Travancore -- will start functioning as SBI branches from April 1.

With the merger of all the five associates, SBI is expected to become a lender of global proportions with an asset base of Rs 37 lakh crore or over USD 555 billion, 22,500 branches and 58,000 ATMs. It will have over 50 crore customers.