SBI launches Global NRI Centre at Kochi

The centre, opened in Kerala - the state that receives the highest number of remittances in the country, will be one-stop customer service centre for all NRI banking related services.

It will be a single point of contact for SBI branches, customers, relationship managers, representative offices and foreign offices.

"We have witnessed consistent growth of our NRI banking portfolio. Our endeavour is to offer our products and services on the digital platform so the our NRI customers experience the ease of banking with us from wherever they are in the world," the bank s chairman Rajnish Kumar told reporters here.

"That s why we have centralised all our services besides offering them specialised services," he added.

Kumar said technological advancements were creating opportunities to modernise and de-risk the way vital remittances are transferred across borders.

As of January 2018, the bank s NRI customer base stood at 33 lakh with around 53 lakh accounts and an NRI deposit base of Rs 1.95 trillion.

Almost 30 per cent of the bank s NRI total deposits comes from Kerala.

The bank also launched a bunch of services - wealth management, SBI Intelligent Assist, free post box service and SBI Mingle for NRIs remittance facility for US-based customers, for NRI customers.

The bank's NRI customers can avail SBI's banking services from any part of globe through a wide range of online facilities such as account opening, in-principle sanctions of loans and instant remittances and a contact centre to offer customer support and issue resolution.