"All the three financial institutions -- IDBI, ICICI and IFCI -- have not been able to raise resources abroad over the last seven-eight months. They can direct their clients to us. I am also not ruling out the possibility of offering them rupee resources to the institutions to them," SBI chairman MS Verma said.

"Since we will have sufficient forex funds with us, we will be in a position to service the needs of the foreign currency borrowers of financial institutions," the SBI chief said.

The three term-lending institutions had earlier approached SBI and expressed their interest to share the proceeds of the five-year RIBs. Even Infrastructure Development Finance Corporation (IDFC) had shown interest in utilising some of the proceeds of the RIBs.

The State Bank will keep 25 per cent of the total RIB mopup ($4.16 billion) abroad and the rest will be brought to India through off-market deals with the Reserve Bank.

The collecting 46 banks will get 50 per cent of their RIB collection in rupee from the State Bank at 9.5 per cent. Since the collecting banks have raised over $2.5 million of the total mop-up, over Rs 6000 crore will be given to these banks in the form of inter-bank deposits.

"We may have to increase the placement limit to certain banks... We will not place any inter-bank deposit for five years. We may place them for six months and then roll them over depending on the performance of the banks," Verma said.

Experts feel that the funds would help bring down the interest rates for infrastructure projects in the country given the low cost of funds. The centre will bear the exchange risk cover with the State Bank only taking care of one per cent of the total exchange risk.