The country’s largest lender State Bank of India is planning to open another 30 overseas offices in the next year to increase its global balance sheet size.

“We plan to add about 30 more overseas offices in our network in the next 12 month,” a senior SBI official said.

SBI now has 151 offices across 32 countries, including the US, the UK, Singapore, Canada and Mauritius.

The focus of these offices is India-related business, the official said, adding, the overseas operations take care of international needs of the bank’s foreign customers, in addition to conducting retail operations.

At present, the bank’s overseas business contributes about 16 per cent to the bank’s total business.

The number of foreign offices increased from 92 as on 31st March, 2009 to 142 as on 31st March, 2010 spread across 32 countries.

The Bank increased its stake from 50 per cent to 55 per cent in Nepal SBI Bank Ltd during the FY’ 2010, making it the banks sixth foreign banking subsidiary.

In a bid to expand its Southeast Asia network, SBI is also on a look out for acquisition of a bank in Indonesia in cash deal not exceeding USD 100 million (about Rs 450 crore).

SBI currently has a subsidiary in Indonesia called PT Bank SBI Indonesia with a network of six branches.

As far as domestic expansion is concerned, the bank opened 611 new branches and 4,206 new ATMs between October 2009 to September 2010.

SBI profit for the second second quarter ended September 2010 grew by 0.4 per cent to Rs 2,501.3 crore against Rs 2,490 crore in the same year-ago period.