SBI pushes into wealth management with vigour as wealthy people surge

By Preeti Singh

State Bank of India, the country’s largest lender, is making a renewed push into wealth management as the number of people getting richer surges.
 

The bank’s wealth management unit is “old” and it wants to change its approach to how it tackles this business, according to Chairman Dinesh Khara. To that end, SBI is deploying about 2,000 executives as relationship managers and focusing on ties with smaller companies across the country, Khara said at the bank’s earnings briefing. 

“We manufacture all the products in the financial sector and have the largest distribution network,” Khara said, in response to a question about whether SBI will consider teaming up with other wealth managers. “We should be in a position to reach out the product to the customers.” He declined to comment on the bank’s current assets under management.

SBI, which has more than 22,500 branches in India, is joining global and domestic players flocking to grab a share of managing India’s growing pile of wealth. The country generated about $590 billion in new financial wealth in 2023, its largest increase in history, according to a recent report from the Boston Consulting Group.

SBI will face competition from global players like HSBC Holdings Plc and Barclays Plc, and local veterans like 360 One WAM Ltd. who are expanding their services and teams to service India’s rich. Private lenders like ICICI Bank Ltd. and Axis Bank Ltd. have also made inroads into the country’s wealth management sector.