SBI Accelerates AI Adoption in Banking, Underwrites ₹1 Lakh Crore in MSME Loans

State Bank of India (SBI), India’s largest lender, used artificial intelligence to underwrite nearly Rs. 1 lakh crore (US$ 11.32 billion) in MSME loans of up to Rs. 5 crore (US$ 0.57 million) each during FY26, covering both new and existing customers. The bank is also leveraging AI, including Large Language Models (LLMs), to automate the processing of cheques valued up to Rs. 10,000, which account for around 25% of its cheque volumes. The system can read cheques, verify mandatory details and compliance requirements, enabling straight-through processing with minimal human intervention. SBI is expanding AI applications across credit underwriting, portfolio management, fraud risk monitoring and customer service. AI-powered early warning systems analyse sectoral, market and publicly available data to identify potentially vulnerable accounts before they become delinquent. The technology is also reducing the workload of relationship managers by handling data collection and preliminary analysis, allowing them to focus more on customer engagement. While SBI has not yet quantified the impact on its cost-to-income ratio, it has reported improvements in customer satisfaction and employee productivity, while maintaining human oversight through a dedicated control risk unit to monitor AI-based cheque processing. $SBIN