SBI takes a small step towards equity trading
State Bank of India is getting into equities trading as a few months ago the bank started actively trading in the secondary market for equity shares in Indian companies.

According to Mr A.K. Purwar, chairman, SBI, this is just the beginning and the bank plans to scale it up gradually.
In the future SBI could become a big trader in equities. Its investment portfolio as on March 31, 2003, was about 1.72 lakh crore. In comparison, its Rs 1,000 crore portfolio of shares looks like peanuts. And its `beginners'' portfolio of about Rs 100 crore is tiny by its own standards.

According to the Reserve Bank of India's norms, banks can have an overall exposure of 5 per cent of gross assets of the previous year. By that criteria SBI, which had total assets of nearly Rs 3.75 lakh crore last year, can have an exposure of nearly Rs 19,000 crore.

That translates into double the market capitalisation of Rs 9,500 crore of its biggest rival ICICI Bank on the BSE on Friday.
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