SBI terminates GMU Kolkata lease; civil society urges RBI to intervene

State Bank of India has terminated the lease of its Global Markets Unit (GMU) premises in Kolkata, a move that has drawn objections from a civil society forum, which has urged the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to intervene and halt any closure of the unit without regulatory approval.

An SBI notice dated January 14, 2026, issued to a vendor, said the bank was terminating the lease of the 11th to 16th floors of the Jeevan Sudha building on Jawaharlal Nehru Road in central Kolkata, which housed the foreign exchange and global markets unit.

The notice provides a one-month window to vacate, signaling the bank’s intention to vacate the premises as part of its plan to consolidate treasury and foreign exchange operations in Mumbai.
The bank operated its GMU and some international operations from the Jeevan Sudha building. However, the bank has a huge building, Samriddhi Bhavan, located at 1, Strand Road, on the banks of the Hooghly, which serves as a major hub housing several departments of the SBI, including the State Bank Archives and Museum, and offers services ranging from retail banking to specialist functions, besides housing a large regional office.

Bank Bachao Desh Bachao Manch (BBDBM), a civil society platform, said the SBI had already communicated to the Life Insurance Corporation of India, which owns the building, its intention to vacate the premises, indicating that the closure of GMU Kolkata has been operationalized at the administrative level.

In a representation submitted in the second week of January and addressed to RBI Governor Sanjay Malhotra, BBDBM urged the central bank not to allow the abandonment of GMU Kolkata’s banking license, saying any closure without explicit approval from regulatory authorities would “preempt” the RBI’s statutory authority and undermine the regulatory process.

The GMU and the Centralized Global Back Office (CGBO) were established in Kolkata in 2015 under the leadership of former SBI chairman Arundhati Bhattacharya and functioned as key back-office operations supporting overseas hubs such as London, Hong Kong and New York.

Soumya Datta, co-convener of BBDBM, said the unit has contributed significantly to the economic ecosystem of West Bengal by facilitating international and offshore banking activities from eastern India and generating direct and indirect employment.

The proposed closure, it said, could result in the loss of specialist banking functions and weaken Kolkata’s role as a financial gateway to India’s east and northeast.