SBI AND ITS ASSOCIATES(5 NOW EARLY 7)

Associate banks

Mumbai Main Branch of SBI in Mumbai.

SBI has five associate banks; all use the same logo of a blue circle and all the associates use the "State Bank of" name, followed by the regional headquarters' name:

• State Bank of Bikaner & Jaipur
• State Bank of Hyderabad
• State Bank of Mysore
• State Bank of Patiala
• State Bank of Travancore

Earlier SBI had only seven associate banks that constituted the State Bank Group. Originally, the then seven banks that became the associate banks belonged to princely states until the government nationalised them between October 1959 and May 1960. In tune with the first Five Year Plan, emphasising the development of rural India, the government integrated these banks into the State Bank of India system to expand its rural outreach. There has been a proposal to merge all the associate banks into SBI to create a "mega bank" and streamline operations.^[9]

The first step towards unification occurred on 13 August 2008 when State Bank of Saurashtra merged with SBI, reducing the number of state banks from seven to six. Then on 19 June 2009 the SBI board approved the merger of its subsidiary, State Bank of Indore, with itself. SBI holds 98.3% in State Bank of Indore. (Individuals who held the shares prior to its takeover by the government hold the balance of 1.77%.)^[10]

The acquisition of State Bank of Indore appoo dded 470 branches to SBI's existing network of 12,448 and over 21,000 ATMs. Also, following the acquisition, SBI's total assets will inch very close to the 10 trillion mark. The total assets of SBI and the State Bank of Indore stood at 9,981,190 million as of March 2009. The process of merging of State Bank of Indore was completed by April 2010, and the SBI Indore branches started functioning as SBI branches on 26 August 2010.^[11]