India's largest public sector lender, State Bank of India's overseas margin were under pressure, said Mr. Pratip Chaudhuri, Chairman of SBI. However, non performing asset (NPA) levels of the bank in the fourth quarter of the financial year remained low compared to third quarter. "In overseas business, our margins are under pressure. We would like to review what our ROE (return on equity) is in overseas business and what is our ROE in domestic business. Generally my sense is that the domestic business ROE is significantly higher than the overseas business," Mr. Chaudhuri said. Currently, SBI has around 185 branches overseas. However, the lender has no plan to reduce branches abroad. Asked about the bank's non performing assets, the chairman said NPA levels had came down during the quarter ended March 31, 2013, compared to the previous quarter. "Our NPA in March quarter is less than that of the December quarter. So I think we had a good quarter (Q4) regarding NPA. But going forward it would be a function of the economy," Mr. Chaudhuri said adding NPAs were relatively less in home loans and relatively higher in commercial as well as industrial loans.
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