SBI launches Global NRI Centre in Kochi

State Bank of India recently launched its Global NRI Centre (GNC) in Kochi in Kerala, the state that receives highest number of remittances in India. The GNC will be a one-stop customer service centre for all NRI (Non-resident Indian) banking related services. To further enhance the service experience for NRIs, the bank also launched other related services such as wealth management, SBI Intelligent Assist, free post box service, SBI Mingle for NRI’s and remittance facility for US-based customers.Leveraging its strong NRI customer base over 3.3mn (as on January 31) the bank, through the GNC aims to centralise operations, which are currently spread across 16 Circles, 92 NRI branches in 66 different locations and several NRI-intensive branches. The GNC will be a single point of contact for SBI branches, customers, relationship managers, representative offices and foreign offices. The bank’s NRI customers can now avail of SBI’s banking services from any part of the world, through a wide range of online facilities like account opening, in-principle sanctions of loans and instant remittances, state-of-art technology, professional and specialised dedicated teams and a 24X7 contact centre to offer customer support and issue resolution.At the launch GNC, Kochi launch, SBI chairman Rajnish Kumar said, “We have witnessed consistent growth of our NRI banking portfolio. Our endeavour is to offer all our products and services on digital platform so that our NRI customers experience the ease of banking with us from wherever they are in the world and that’s why we have centralised all our services and offering under the Global NRI center, besides offering them specialised services”.“Technological advancements are creating opportunities to modernise and de-risk the way vital remittances are transferred across borders. Formal remittances are also seen as a key stepping stone to improving financial inclusion by encouraging more people to have bank accounts,” he added. SBI embarked on its international journey with the opening of its first international branch in Colombo in 1864. As of December, 2017, the bank had some 207 offices spread across 37 countries.