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Informist, Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2026

MUMBAI – State Bank of India Managing Director Ashwini Kumar Tewari said the bank is seeing a healthy pipeline of acquisition-financing opportunities, with five to six deals currently under consideration, including one large transaction. Speaking on the sidelines of the Financial Institution Benchmarking and Calibration conference, Tewari said the bank has completed four to five acquisition-financing deals so far, with the business largely focused on technology-led industries.

Tiwari indicated that SBI sees an opportunity to capture around 20% of the estimated INR-2-trillion acquisition-financing market, although pricing remains a key challenge. "M&A will help in the corporate book," Tewari said, indicating that acquisition financing could provide an avenue for growth in SBI's corporate lending portfolio.

On the proposed introduction of polymer currency notes, Tewari said banks could face a significant upfront cost as ATMs would need to be resized to accommodate the new notes. SBI has nearly 200,000 ATMs, and the cost of modifying individual machines could be around INR 200,000-INR 300,000, he said. The exact cost would become clearer once the pilot begins, as the specifications and scale of the change are yet to be finalised.

Tewari also said SBI's expected credit loss pilot system is ready, with some fine-tuning still required.  End

Reported by Kabir Sharma

Edited by Avishek Dutta

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