Country's largest lender, State Bank of India (SBI) continues to expand its network across the nation. After opening 1,000 new branches for the current fiscal, the bank now targets to open 2,000 new branches for next fiscal.

Chief General Manager of SBI (Bengal circle) Jayant Kumar Sinha said, "The bank will open 2,000 branches across India next year."

Sinha also confirmed that in the ongoing financial year, the bank has opened 1,000 new branches until now.

Presently SBI has 11,009 branches spread across the nation.

He further informed that to overcome the troubles faced by the SME sector, the bank is planning to restructure accounts. They are resorting to such a practice in order to prevent the accounts being turned into non performing assets (NPAs).

In fact the bank has already decided to restructure SME loans in the Bengal circle. This circle basically comprise of West Bengal, Sikkim and Andaman & Nicobar Islands. To keep to with RBI's guidelines for restructuring SME loans, the bank would take measures such as increasing the repayment tenure of the loan and help viable entities turnaround through financial support.

Presently the bank has around Rs 8,000 crore exposures to the SME sector in the Bengal circle. This amounts to 54% of its total SME and priority sector lending.