India’s biggest lender SBI to set up AI, fintech project finance unit

Signage at a State Bank of India (SBI) branch in Mumbai, India, on Thursday, Oct. 24, 2024. The SBI's newly appointed chairman said he's targeting the country's unbanked population as it seeks to expand amid intense competition for deposits. Photographer: Abeer Khan/Bloomberg

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State Bank of India, the country’s largest lender, is setting up a unit to manage project financing solutions for “new age industries” such as artificial intelligence, e-commerce, and fintech, according to a senior executive.

The public sector bank plans to complete the project within a year and will hire “specialized professionals” to staff it, said Ashwini Kumar Tewari, a managing director at the SBI. It’s also in the process of appointing an external consultant, Tewari said.

The project will help diversify the work of the bank’s project finance and structuring unit, which appraises, structures and funds large projects in infrastructure. Lending to so-call new age industries and renewable energy sectors increasingly make up a larger portion of SBI’s project financing portfolios.

Those sectors will benefit from a surge in spending as Prime Minister Narendra Modi upgrades India’s infrastructure. In total, SBI funded 48 large projects through its project finance and structuring unit in the 2024 fiscal year, according to the bank’s annual report.

The unit, to be called “center of excellence for project financing”, will also share insights with other financial institutions, Tewari said.