Friday, July 1 2005 11:51 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Mumbai: State Bank of India (SBI) is expecting to earn profits in the region of $ 90-100 million from its overseas operations in the current fiscal and will work to maintain net interest margins at around 3.5 per cent to strengthen bottom line.

The country's largest commercial bank does not plan to issue equity shares through domestic offering or American/Global Depository Receipts.

Currently, SBI has 67 offices in 29 countries and except two, all are profitable. The overseas operations contributed $50 million last fiscal, SBI chairman A K Purwar said addressing the annual general meeting of shareholders in Mumbai held under strict security arrangements.

The two branches, in Muscat and Sydney, which were started in 2004 were making losses and are expected to become profitable soon, Purwar said.

On the overseas business expansion, he said SBI acquired majority stake in Mauritius-based bank in 2004-05 and expects to acquire more banking entities in Asia and Africa in the future.

Responding to query on SBI's performance against global benchmark, he said the net interest margins (NIM) were 3.39 per cent for 2004-05, up from 3.04 per cent in 2003-04.

The global benchmark was 3.00-3.5 per cent and expect SBI's NIM's to be consistently around 3.5 per cent, he added.

The bank was among the best but its transaction costs and non-performing assets had to be brought down further, he added.