State Bank of India, country's premier bank and PayPal, the world's leading open digital payments company, today entered into a strategic partnership to promote cross border trade and facilitate payments for SBI and PayPal users both in India and abroad.

The partnership will enable SBI Debit cardholders to use PayPal when buying products from overseas websites and allow SBI's Micro Small and Medium Enterprise (MSME) customers to gain access to PayPal's secure payment solutions. "We would also collaborate on providing innovative financial solutions to the merchants who are using PayPal services," the bank said.

"The announcement reiterates the importance of India as a strategic market for PayPal. In addition to having a strong engineering workforce based out of India, PayPal also has a very robust and growing cross border business in the country. The partnership will help PayPal work closely with SBI to make it easy for Indian exporters and consumers gain access to a global audience. One of the key aspects of the partnership is the impetus that will be provided to eGovernance projects of the Government of India," it said.

B. Sriram, managing director, SBI said, ''SBI has been bringing value to its customers by providing them innovative financial solutions. SBI is very pleased to have this tie-up as it provides a perfect opportunity to both of us to collaborate and offer a wide gamut of customized financial solutions to merchants across the board. This would bring new opportunities for our SME customer base.'' 

Shares of the bank declined Rs 2.3, or 0.79%, to trade at Rs 289.50. The total volume of shares traded was 592,867 at the BSE (12.38 p.m., Thursday).