Kolkata, Jan 17 : The State Bank of India has terminated the lease for 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 stop any closure of the unit without regulatory approval.
An SBI notice dated January 14, 2026, issued to a vendor, stated that the bank is terminating the lease for 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 period to vacate, signalling the bank’s intent to leave the premises as part of its plan to consolidate treasury and forex operations in Mumbai.
The bank used to operate its GMU and some international operations from Jeevan Sudha Building.
However, the bank has a massive building, Samriddhi Bhavan, located at 1, Strand Road on the banks of the Hooghly, which serves as a major hub housing several SBI departments, including the State Bank Archives & Museum, and offers services ranging from retail banking to specialised functions, apart from hosting a large regional office.
The Bank Bachao Desh Bachao Manch (BBDBM), a civil society platform, said the SBI has already communicated to the Life Insurance Corporation of India, the building’s owner, its intention to vacate the premises, indicating that the closure of GMU Kolkata has been operationalised 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 permit the surrender of the banking licence of GMU Kolkata, stating that any closure without explicit regulatory approval would “pre-empt” the RBI’s statutory authority and undermine the regulatory process.
The GMU and Centralised Global Back Office (CGBO) were established in Kolkata in 2015 under former SBI chairperson Arundhati Bhattacharya and have functioned as key back-office operations supporting overseas centres such as London, Hong Kong and New York.
BBDBM joint convener Soumya Datta said the unit has contributed significantly to West Bengal’s economic ecosystem by facilitating international and offshore banking activities from eastern India and generating direct and indirect employment.
The proposed closure, he said, could result in the loss of specialised banking functions and weaken Kolkata’s role as a financial gateway for eastern and north-eastern India. (PTI)
