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Rama Amara

Managing Director, State Bank of India

Search every verified Rama Amara interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. Rama Mohan Rao Amara, Managing Director of the State Bank of India, spoke at the LUB MSME South India Summit in Hyderabad on October 9, 2026, where he discussed the role of banking in supporting MSMEs and startups. In his address, he described a "productivity and finance flywheel" in which technology adoption by MSMEs can improve their bankability, while startup adoption of MSME products can improve fundability. He noted that banking is evolving from collateral-based lending toward cash flow-based lending, citing government-backed guarantees that enable financing of viable enterprises up to 10 crores without collateral. Amara also referenced Skyroot Aerospace, a Hyderabad-based company, as an example of private-sector achievement in space, noting its Vikram 1 rocket became the first privately developed Indian rocket to reach orbit from Indian soil. Amara highlighted SBI's support infrastructure, including over 2,000 trained relationship managers serving as single points of contact, and initiatives such as SBA Chakra and a center of excellence. He framed these efforts within the broader goal of "Scale Up Bharat," stating that as enterprises become stronger, the nation becomes stronger. His remarks emphasized the importance of financial visibility and evidence-based lending in enabling growth capital access for MSMEs and startups.

Recent appearances

Notable quotes

“Adoption converts innovation into transactions. Transactions create evidence and evidence creates a financial visibility and the financial visibility can progressively create fundability. Fundability means your access to the bank loans or otherwise your access to growth capital which is given by the private equity and other venture capital firms. So for the MSME technology adoption can improve bankability for the sta”

“China's export-led growth model is reaching its limitations, a fact recognized by Chinese authorities as well who have once again announced intentions to promote domestic demand growth. This provides Indian exporters a unique opportunity to increase their share of global trade and over the next decade make India the manufacturing hub for the world.”

“India's inability to grow into a global export powerhouse and continued dependence on domestic demand for growth has suddenly provided us an advantage in terms of the likely impact from the trade disruptions.”

“We were able to underwrite loans up to 5 crores using this business rule engine in just in a day. So that's the use of technology that the bank is... increasingly people will start using them. Of course if we talk about like a next three five years what will happen you cannot help avoid talking about GenAI. So obviously I think while AI has been used because I refer to those algorithms where AI/ML is used, GenAI has ”

“We have moved away from the problem of twin balance sheet disadvantage to twin balance sheet advantage because corporates are relatively less leveraged, bank balance sheets have strengthened. The FSR kind of report what RBI publishes reconfirming every time every six months that actually system is resilient and it can take care of the normal shocks without any serious impairment in the capital efficacy etc.”

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