The State Bank of India has announced it is opening a new branch in Frisco, Texas, with critics raising concerns about Indian workers sending remittances back to India with minimal fees.
The branch is expected to open in mid-September and will be located off Coit Road.
The Indian population in the Dallas-Fort Worth area is estimated at about 230,000, with many being in the U.S. on H-1B visas. The population increased by 20% from 2020 to 2024 as the federal government continued approving H-1B visas.
The bank’s website states that customers can send remittances—money foreign workers send back to their home countries—with zero transfer fees.
Online customers can send up to $50,000 per day, while mobile customers can send up to $25,000 per day, according to the bank’s website. There is no stated limit for remittances sent from a branch. The bank specializes in remittance services to India and Bangladesh.
Employees at the bank speak multiple languages, including English, Hindi, Punjabi, and other Indian languages.
State Bank of India is headquartered in Los Angeles and has multiple branches across California. The institution is also backed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which insures deposits of up to $250,000 per depositor.
The new Frisco location has drawn criticism from those who say the services could be used to evade American laws.
According to an article by Ammon Blair, a senior fellow with the Texas Public Policy Foundation’s Secure & Sovereign Nation Initiative, the United States is losing at least $200 billion annually from remittances leaving the domestic economy and supporting foreign economies.
“Through the lens of gray-zone conflict, remittances are not neutral financial transfers. They function as an asymmetric economic weapon, weakening U.S. labor markets, eroding the rule of law, and stabilizing regimes that act contrary to American interests. In gray-zone conflict, the rule of law itself becomes contested terrain,” Blair wrote.
Blair also told the Daily Signal that the bank is bringing the remittance issue directly to Texas.
“This is not simply another community bank entering a growing suburb,” Blair said. “SBI California is a subsidiary of State Bank of India, which is controlled by the Indian government.”
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