State Bank of India (SBI) will absorb the corporate branches of its associates after the merger, according to a top official. “To a large extent, they will fold up into the corporate branches of the parent. As much as 60-70 per cent of the larger value accounts are common and you need only one relationship manager for that,” B.Sriram, Managing Director, SBI told the media. The country’s largest lender had already started the process of merging five of its associate banks, a process that is expected to completed by the end of the financial year. On merging the retail branches, he said the bank had to develop a detailed plan. He cited the example of State Bank of Bikaner and Jaipur which had more presence in the interior of Rajasthan while there are more SBI branches in cities.SBI alone has close to 16,500 branches while the group has over 22,000 branches.
