Sahebrao Deshmukh Co-operative Bank, with eleven branches in Mumbai and one in Satara, was merged with Pune-based Cosmos Co-operative after the Reserve Bank approved the voluntary union of the two cooperative banks. On September 26, the merger becomes official.

After the merger, the balance sheet size of Cosmos Bank will be roughly Rs 32,000 crore, with the recent merger boosting that amount by Rs 200 crore. The Cosmos Co-operative Bank has combined 18 other banks with itself as of the most recent merger. After the merger, Cosmos Bank presently has 50 branches in Mumbai and 170 in 7 different Indian states. Bank reported a net profit of Rs. 151 crore for the fiscal year that ends in march 2023. The bank paid its stockholders a dividend of 8%. Over Rs. 2000 Crore are in the bank's own funds and share capital.

Small cooperative banks are finding it difficult to survive due to intense competition, according to the bank's chairman Milind Kale. "In this case, Cosmos Bank has guaranteed depositors that their money is secure in cooperative banks. The bank has also placed a strong emphasis on loan recovery, managing to do so last fiscal year in the amount of Rs 550 crore.

As the Reserve Bank's top brass met with numerous top officials of urban cooperative banks, encouraging them to concentrate on the sector, regulate the asset quality, and enhance governance, the merger of Cosmos-Bank and Sahebrao Deshmukh gains significance. Das recently asked the directors of a few Mumbai-based UCBs to work on raising asset quality and underwriting standards in a conversation with them. In a speech last week, Union Home Minister Amit Shah noted that while the cooperative sector is still important today, political meddling has hurt it in the past.