The Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) Governor Sanjay Malhotra has said that India will soon have more domestic lenders featured in the top 100 global banks list, given the pace of economic expansion and growth in the banking system. He also noted that the RBI cannot put a number of big banks India should have in the global list.

Currently, State Bank of India and HDFC Bank are the only Indian banks that appear among the world's top 100 banks, ranked 43rd and 73rd, respectively. During the fiscal year ended March 2025, PSU banks' cumulative profit rose 26 per cent year-on-year (YoY) to a record level of Rs 1.78 lakh crore. All 12 public sector banks had earned a total profit of Rs 1.41 lakh crore in FY24.

Meanwhile, the government in the past had done two rounds of consolidation in a bid to create bigger banks. In the biggest consolidation exercise in the banking space, the government, in August 2019, had announced four major mergers of public sector banks, bringing down their total number to 12 from 27 in 2017.