State Bank of India, California

Fast service. excellent customer service. these guys are awesome. i m surprised by these poor reviews.

I was very skeptical going into the SBI San Jose branch based on Unilocal reviews.
Walking in to open a new account, I was pleasantly surprised by the clean business environment and a friendly front desk person who explained they can assist me with preparing the paperwork for the account but it had to be mailed to India after.
I sat down and was immediately joined by «A. N.» who I later learnt was the head of this branch. He walked me through the process, verified and attested the forms and sent me off in 12 minutes flat knowing I just need to mail in the forms to open the account.
This was a impeccable pleasant, expeditious and professional experience comparable to any BofA or Wells branch.
Bear in mind that SBI works within the scope of financial laws in India. So when reviewers complain about the inadequacies of the SBI branch or web technology capabilities, it points more to their ignorance than the what SBI is able to offer given the relative minuscule scale of their operations here in the US compared to India.
I’ve been to SBI San Jose some 10 years back. It’s come a long way! Support SBI as they evolve and grow with your business.

1. Phone call to their contact number mostly goes to voicemail. And the inbox is full so no messages can be left. !!!
2. Both being SBI, one would think that it would be easy to setup online transfers easily between the SBI Cal and SBI India. Nope. The website user-​experience is really bad and I totally stayed away from it.
3. You cant do wire-​transfer directly. You have to visit the bank to deposit the cashiers check or cash to your account.
4. Next day FAX the wire transfer form or visit the bank again to execute the wire transfer. NOPE you cant even leave the form on the previous day!!! it has to be 2 trips.
Let me think about something positive !!! :-)
Wire transfer fee is little less if done in Rupees.
Candies /​Water/​Couch to sit :-)

The SBI experience in the US is most disappointing! Online banking is like getting shot in the face after getting a long and excruciatingly painful lobotomy.
If I had enemies I would suggest they try SBI and pay the cab fare to get them there.
I hope the good folks in the branch are reading this and I know it must be hard to live with so much dismal feedback. However they maybe able to influence the management from the inside and refuse to work until these issues are fixed.
First log on to their website and select your country. Apparently in the SBI world California is a country. So disgraceful it is not even funny. After 7 steps you finally get to a login page for online banking. Everything is paper based here in the year 2015! These forms need to be Faxed in! Their website often fails with long stack traces of errors. Oh man I could go on forever — but they have a captive user base that does not seem to have much choice and so the misery continues…

This review is mostly about online banking they got. The website uses java in 2015 and doesn’t work with any of the password managers. I tried resetting my password and the website went down. When I tried logging in again, neither the old password worked nor the new one. I sent several emails asking the staff to close my account or reset my password. Neither happened. I visited the bank only once and I just found the staff running the show like they would in India. There is no customer respect. The amount of bureaucracy is terrible. I decided to complain to the manager about the number of forms that one needs to sign to open an account and he wasn’t very receptive of feedback nor did he care. Overall, very disappointing experience. The only advantage is the ability to send money to India free of cost if you have 100 $ in your account. I used it once and luckily it worked. If their online banking is anywhere close to US banks, I’d honestly give them a shot. But alas!

I am not sure how people are transferring money to India but SBI offers competitive exchange rates and i liked SBI until now.
I tried other like Remitnow and other, they are all just horrible. Suggestion for others, dont even try those
My favourite seems to be XOOM, no hassles, fast and direct instant deposit to Indian account for ICICI
Recently SBICal online seems to be having problems. I figured that it must be because of the Java updates and SBICal website is not upgraded to the latest Java and hence people get all security blocks. Application blocked etc.
I knew my password for sure but was not able to login and finally my password got blocked /​locked. I called up SBICal and here starts their pathetic customer service. They do not understand the problem. I say i am unable to login and they say they also cannot login to their systems because of the rain. Ya, that day it was raining heavily. I did not have issues with internet because of the rain. I use residential connection from Comcast and god knows what SBICal uses for commercial banking internet. Literally they say they are not able to login because of the rain… They could not login to the system to take my complain, forget about resolution… Finally the best they could take a request to resend me a new password via POST. In this internet age SBICal really is the one which uses POST. Today i got my pw after 10 days and tried login but same issue. pw incorrect. Not sure what to do…

I wanted to open NRE account so I went and prepared documents with SBI San Jose branch that they claimed were good to post to any sbi branch in India for opening an account.
I also opened a US bank account with them to save wiring fee. They told me to wait until I got a password in postal mail in 4 – 5 business days. On receive of this password, I made my own password and logged into the account. The next day I tried to log into the account and my password would just not work. I had written down the password I made so was very sure on the correctness. I went to the branch with this concern and they asked me to email them after which a password would be sent by mail in 4 – 5 business days. I received this new reset password but it didnot work. I was already in India so I went to sbi branch there who had no control over this at all and failed to even give me a commitment date to resolve this issue. I didnot have a checkbook because SBI US bank accounts dont give a checkbook for savings. However, I know they can because i have a savings checkbook for chase. My online access didnot work and I didnot have a way for money transfer while I was in India. SBI branch in India said they had no way of getting the money from SBI branch in San Jose. I spent more than 4 hrs at Indian SBI branch trying to find a solution but kept on running into a wall.
Also, the documents that San Jose branch had helped me prepare were incorrect and not complete according to a personalised SBI branch in India. According to SBI San Jose branch, I could have just mailed the prepared doucments to a SBI branch in India to have opened an account but that certainly was not correct.
— Inaccurate information and document preparation
— Crapiest website ever!
— No checkbook for US Savings bank opened by SBI
— No link between US branches and branches in India. They do not ever communicate to resolve customer issues. SBI bank in US is a subsidiary of Indian SBI so they dont communicate is the answer they gave me at SBI San Jose.
— Unprofessional attitude
Complete hassle and a huge waste of time! Never go with SBI!

This review is about their online banking. My experience at the branch has been good so far.
I can’t believe that such a big Indian bank would have such a lousy website.
Problems:
1) Can’t setup an ACH transfer to fund your account from a US bank
2) Can’t send an email for help from within your account login
3) No way to setup a beneficiary for money transfer to India. Even though there is a menu item to transfer money to a beneficiary.
I am not sure why do they even have the website. The only thing you can do is check the balance.

There is not one good thing I can say about SBI California.
Their services are pathetic. They are extremely unprofessional in supplying information to their clients about any aspect of banking. Transferring money to India becomes a multi-​day event. In case you want to change your address then it really becomes a never ending event. No matter how many times you fax the documents to them or email them they just don’t update anything. I have decided to close my account with them and take my business to some other agency
Absolutely a disgrace.

I wanted to open an account (NRE) so I went to this bank I thought they will help as I already have an account back in India.
Well This bank operate as a separate bank (California SBI) and don’t help you at all. Though I have SBI account back in India, SBI (NRE PUNE) asked me to do an attestation here in California and guess what SBI (San Diego) charged me $ 25 for that.
Well for an account opening you need 1000 rs in you account so I made $ 30 DD and SBI (San Diego) charged me $ 10 for that.
This doesn’t stop here… I had to forward my packet on my own !!! oh really !!! that costed me $ 70.
Total 70+25+10 = «$ 105» for an account opening.
This doesn’t stop here — SBI (NRE PUNE) they don’t have courtesy to even let me know that packet has arrived or something. I called two days, back to back, to check if my packet has arrived (bcz on fedex It was showing me that it has been delivered).
While talking to this guy in India I am on hold and listening this (Aho Joshi madam te packet aala ka baghata ka jara) WTH !! and after 5 min or something I get response I wanted to hear «packet pochala».
Finally they opened an account and gave me some kit so that I can access my account online but it took more than a week for them.
They also charged me 100Rs for check book. May be they will charde for my debit card as well.
Guys please don’t go for SBI NRE acoount.
After I told this shit to one of my friend he went to ICICI and guess what, how much he spent to open an account …$ 0.0
They picked his Self attested documents from his home and they gonna open an account in 48 hrs once they receive the packet.

I went to SBI San Jose branch to open an account and received excellent service from them. They helped us with all the paper work and were courteous throughout. All my follow up calls have been answered very professionally.

Horrible service. They have no sense of customer service and never receives phones…

The branch that specializes in bad behavior! Calling for information is a big crime here.
The most ill behaved people are employed here. They have no consistency in what they say and yell at their countrymen — bloated egos — and lack of ethics. SBI please employ useless but at least people who know how to talk. Not even worth rating — disgusting to the core.
Mr. Ravi Kumar Sadhana — learn to talk to your customers — who made you the VP? What example are you setting for your next generation? You have a problem speaking to your customers — find another job. Customers are not supposed to know the rules when they come to you for help — they expect you to show them the correct way — and if you run out of etiquette discussing them do something else for a living. Don’t transfer your irritability to others who are calling for information!

Terrible service, got frustrated, wouldn’t do there business again.

HORRIBLE IS THE ONE WORD to describe them.
— Never pick up the phone to answer customers queries. Called them atleast 10 times, no response. Never return calls once customer has left a message.
— Any question that I ask, they cannot help.
— All they are told and are able to do is take your money and put it in some NRI branch in India.
They cannot provide any other service.
Indian bureaucracy in the US. Congratulations.
If you have any of the following questions — the answer is either «we don’t know» or «call your branch in India» (and guess what you have to call an India number which again don’t pick up the phone.).
THEY CANNOT HELP YOU WITH ANYTHING.

I’ve been to the San Jose branch of State Bank of India several times in the past. Their ability to deliver a prompt service to customers is really questionable. Most employees look not so professional and seemingly busy, but when it comes to meet the customer needs they are way behind.
I am giving 3 stars because I enjoy the proximity of this branch to my workplace and I don’t want the bank to go away!
I would suggest they look at technology investments to reduce the dependency on paper work and makes the system work efficient. I my recent visit, it took almost 40 minutes to complete a remittance transaction to an Indian account.

This is banking India style. Except for the ones in the remit counter, rest all are very lethargic and time pass. The Manager is worst of all and he just sits there to check internet and facebook and never attends a customer. He has to approve your internet remit online but misses it most of time. Unless you followup things will never work .
The no# 408 938 9240 is never answered and always go to VM. Bank with them only if you feel nostalgic about india banking .
As a customer, i feel very disappointed with the way SBI San jose works even after being in America and unfortunately the attitude here is «they are doing major help to you and not the otherway round .
Not sure when will they Change.