The largest lender of the country, State Bank of India has been able to increase in overseas presence by almost 50%, despite the world being hit by the economic meltdown, a top official of the bank said.

"As we have spread our overseas branches across 32 countries in the world, we have increased our foreign office branches from 92 as on March 31, 2010 to 142 as on March 31, 2010 ," said SBI chairman OP Bhatt.

The bank opened six new overseas branches at Clementi, Marine Parade and Toa Payoh in Singapore, Kowloon in Hong Kong, Harrow in the UK and Lenasia in South Africa, and one branch by the bank's wholly owned USA subsidiary, SBI (California ) Ltd, at Washington DC.

The bank has also opened its overseas subsidiaries offices namely Bank SBI Indonesia (5 offices), Nepal SBI Bank (3 offices) and SBI Mauritius (1 office).