Mumbai: The country's largest commercial bank State Bank of India (SBI) has inked a joint venture (JV) agreement with French financial services firm Societe Generale Securities Services (SGSS).

The JV will provide custody and other related services in India.

In a regulatory intimation to the Bombay Stock Exchange, SBI said Thursday that in the proposed company, SGSS, part of Societe Generale Group, will hold 35 percent shares while SBI will have control of a 65 percent equity stake.

The agreement signed between the two banks is awaiting clearance from the regulatory bodies.

Attempts to contact SBI officials elicited no response.

The Paris-headquartered SGSS is the third largest corporate and investment bank in Europe and is considered to be the sixth largest French company in terms of market capitalisation.

In January 2008, SGSS made news when a futures trader fraudulently siphoned off an amount to the tune of 4.9 billion euros, a fraud which banking investigators said was much larger than the transactions made by Nick Leeson who allegedly brought down Barings Bank.

The French bank has a presence in 80 countries and serves corporate, financial institutions and investors in Asia, Americas and Europe while SBI has a presence in 32 countries, with over 10,000 branches.