The largest lender of the country, State Bank of India has set up a specialised commerical branch (SCB) in the city of Guntur in Andhra Pradesh. The branch has been opened with the aim of tapping the huge clientele' of high net worth individuals (HNIs), both business houses and corporates.

The target client base of the branch would be customers who have an annual turnover in the range of Rs 50 crore to Rs 500 crore.

The branch was inaugurated by Mr Shyamal Acharya, Deputy Managing Director and Group Executive in charge of the mid-corporate segment. Acharya cited the main reason for Guntur being selected for this purpose being the fact that "traditionally Guntur has been the major centre for tobacco, cotton, chilli and other commodities and also a very major educational centre."

"The branch has an ambitious target of growing at 50 per cent per annum and achieving Rs 1,800 crore in a year, adding at least ten more such high net worth clients," he said.

There are 65 SCBs in the country with Andhra Pradesh having two more SCBs one in Hyderabad and Visakhapatnam.

The annual business coming from all the SCBs pan India amounted to around Rs 1,50,000 crore.