SBI's $500m bond priced at tightest spread since RBI window

The State Bank of India is a bank that is owned by the Indian government.

It decided to borrow $500 million from investors who live in other countries.

To do this, it sold special promises called bonds, which mean the bank will pay the money back later with a little extra, called interest.

SBI promised to pay 5.25 per cent interest every year on the borrowed money.

Very many investors wanted to buy these bonds, so many that they asked for nearly five times more bonds than SBI had to sell.

Because so many people wanted them, SBI could lower the extra amount it had to pay on top of safe loans from the US government.

That extra amount was the smallest any Indian public bond has needed to pay since the RBI, India's central bank, made a special announcement.

The chairman of the bank said this shows that investors around the world trust India and SBI.

The bonds received good safety ratings and will be traded on stock exchanges in Singapore and India.