PDF: 2962 pages, 5.2 MB - Bay Area Council Economic Institute

Global Reach
Only three Indian banks—State Bank of India, Bank of India and, more recently, Bank
of Baroda—have established U.S. branches. A fourth, ICICI Bank, has opened a New
York representative office. In the Bay Area, Bank of India has a single branch in San
Francisco, and State Bank of India (SBI), through its State Bank of India (California) unit, has
branches in San Jose and Fresno, as well as in Southern California.
According to the California Department of Finance, SBI (California), established in 1982, today
has $420.3 million in assets, $107.2 million in deposits, and $396.2 million in loans in California.
Business in recent years has grown steadily. SBI (California) offers a variety of NRI deposit
products, including:
• rupee-denominated, non-resident external (NRE) checking, savings or fixed deposit
accounts in India, with repatriable deposits;
• foreign currency non-resident (FCNR) deposits denominated in dollars, pounds or euros;
• rupee-denominated, non-resident ordinary (NRO) accounts for income earned in India,
for which deposits are not repatriable and taxes are paid in India; and
• for NRIs and people of Indian origin returning to India, resident foreign currency (RFC)
accounts that are dollar-denominated and can be converted to FCNR or NRE accounts
if the account holder moves overseas again.
A substantial amount of SBI’s California loan business involves commercial real estate purchases,
construction and renovation—particularly hotels and motels, multi-family apartments, and shopping
malls. SBI also specializes in loans for medical professionals to set up practices, buy diagnostic
and surgical equipment and buy or lease ambulances and other paratransit vehicles. In
addition to accepting remittances, the bank offers loans against certificate of deposit and repatriable
accounts in India; small business loans up to $250,000; credit lines against inventory and
receivables; and letters of credit for trade transactions.
Bank of India’s first branch opened in San Francisco in December 1977. Today, its California
activities total $312.2 million in assets, $4 million in deposits, and $309.9 million in loans—up
from $116.3 million, $3.5 million and $113.7 million, respectively, in late 2004. Bank of India
specializes in CD accounts, trade finance and advisory services for U.S. exporters and banks, as
well as remittances through demand drafts and mail or wire transfers, denominated in rupees,
dollars, sterling, euros or yen.
Wells Fargo Bank offers remittance services to India as part of its ExpressSend product,
in partnership with ICICI. Up to $3,000 per day, in cash or by electronic transfer from a
Wells Fargo account, can be sent the next business day to a beneficiary’s ICICI account.
As it had done earlier during the 1990s in China, Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) began
establishing a foothold in India in 2000 by making contacts and connecting Indian and
Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and venture capitalists. In August 2008, SVB subsidiary
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