India’s largest lender, State Bank of India, is set to offer wealth management and financial planning services to its customers, according to the Business Standard (of India).

Though the bank will formally launch the service in a few weeks, it has already approached around 30,000 customers. “Not everyone has shown enthusiasm but we expect the response to improve once there is more awareness about what we are offering,” according to a bank executive quoted by the publication.

The move comes at a time when a number of international banking groups, such as Barclays Wealth, Belgium’s KBC and Switzerland’s EFG, have been looking to increase their involvement in the Indian market.

The exact number of account holders who will benefit from the move could not be ascertained, but a senior SBI executive said the bank would have over a million customers with the required balances, the publication said.

To start with, the bank has hired 1,200 financial managers and has started training them with moves to hire a further 1,200 professionals under way.

There will also be 5,000 financial planners over the next two years or so, an executive said. The majority of the managers are being hired from the industry, athough a few SBI executives have also been roped in by the personal banking department.

SBI is the latest lender, and among the first in the public sector, to offer wealth management and financial planning services to its clients.