The State Bank of India has announced that it will open a new branch in Yangon, the capital city of Myanmar. SBI becomes the very first domestic bank to do so.
The chairperson, Arundhati Bhattacharya stated that Yangon branch is 54th foreign branch of nation’s largest bank. The new branch will extend the global presence of SBI in 37 countries through 198 offices.
“SBI has been associated with Myanmar since 1861, when the erstwhile Bank of Bengal operated its branch in the then Rangoon. Later, as part of bank nationalisation, the operations of the Rangoon branch of SBI were taken over by the Peoples’ Bank of Burma in February 1963.” Bhattacharya, the first chairman to get a second term at SBI, said.
The Myanmarese central bank earlier this year allowed SBI to open a branch with the primary objective of extending wholesale banking services to foreign corporates.
India has been a major trading partner of Myanmar for centuries. Since the signing of India and Myanmar trade agreement in 1970, bilateral trade has been growing steadily and rose from USD 328 million in 1997-98 to USD 2.052 billion in 2015-16.
