State Bank of India (SBI) is aiming to become the first Indian financial firm to cross a milestone of Rs 1 lakh crore net profit in the next 3-5 years, chairman of the country's largest lender C S Setty has said.

SBI recorded a standalone net profit of Rs 61,077 crore in FY24, registering a growth of 21.59 per cent.

"We have potential. Definitely, we would like to be the first company in India to reach that milestone," Setty said when asked if it is possible to cross Rs 1 lakh crore in the next 3-5 years.

However, he said, "while profits, market capitalization etc are extremely important elements for our organization, we give equal thrust on customer-centricity and it acts as a fundamental aspect of our operations." With regard to corporate loan demand, Setty said, the bank has already got a Rs 4 lakh crore strong credit pipeline from India Inc and capital expenditure by the private sector is expected to pick up in the second half of the fiscal year.

"We see a good amount of interest in private capital expenditure. The infrastructure financing, of course, is mainly coming from the roads, renewable energy, and some of the refineries," he told PTI in an interview.

As far as public spending is concerned, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in the Budget proposed to raise the capital expenditure target by 11.1 per cent to record Rs 11.11 lakh crore for 2024-25. This is 3.4 per cent of the country's GDP.

Setty said some of the corporates had undertaken brownfield expansion for which the capital expenditure was funded by their own cash accruals and cash balances that they had.

However, he said, "We now see some of the corporates drawing the term loans for brownfield expansion too." "We have a pipeline, both in terms of sanctioned but not disbursed and a pipeline of proposals that are under process. This amounts to almost Rs 4 lakh crore, indicating that the corporate pipeline is strong," he said.

Stressing that the private capital expenditure will definitely pick up during the year, he said, there is renewed government expenditure after the first quarter slowdown due to general elections.

"We see in the second quarter, as well as in the second half of the current financial year, both capital expenditure will be spurred by the government expenditure as well as private expenditure," he said.

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