For the first woman chairman of the 211-year-old bank, 'go rural' is as important as the bank's digital push. She has already built the reputation and image as a silent performer.
"Country roads, take me home." The State Bank of India (SBI) seems to be crooning the old John Denver number.
Post the merger with five associate banks and Bharatiya Mahila Bank, which came into effect on April 1, India's largest bank may have gained enough muscle mass to wrestle global behemoths, but its increased sway on the rural market takes it much closer to what India's biggest lender stands for: 'The banker to every Indian'.
With the help of its associate banks, SBI is aggressively building up its rural network. "In cities, we are already a preferred bank, thanks to our pricing and attractive products. Now, efforts are on to expand our reach in the rural areas," says Arundhati Bhattacharya, Chairman of SBI.
For the first woman chairman of the 211-year-old bank, 'go rural' is as important as the bank's digital push. She has already built the reputation and image as a silent performer.
With the merger, the nimble-footed public sector lender has entered the league of top 50 global banks with a balance sheet size of Rs 33 lakh crore, with 24,017 branches and 59,263 ATMs, serving more than 42 crore customers. And it straddles all segments of the economy, with the aggression that is commonly associated with private and foreign banks.
With the opening of 386 new branches during last fiscal, SBI's network has reached 17,170, as of March 2017, of which 64 per cent are in rural and semi-urban areas, says SBI's annual report for 2016-17.
"With an aim for improved customer service, better crowd management, reduction in wait times and overall reduction in the service time (processing time), we have rolled out Customer Experience Excellence Project (CEEP), which has moved at an accelerated pace in 2016-17. We have rolled out 1,519 branches under CEEP during last fiscal, and the total number of branches under CEEP stands at 4,525 as of March 2017," says the chairman in the annual report.
In order to expand its reach to the rural populace and enable the benefits of digitisation to the masses, SBI has rolled out an exclusive offering in 'assisted' mode — State Bank MobiCash. The wallet was launched in partnership with BSNL and is also available for basic/feature phone users along with smartphone users.
It aims to bridge the gap between the urban and rural market and fulfil aspirations across all sections of the society, thus helping India move towards a cashless society.
At a time when the rural market undergoes a paradigm change with structural shifts in the economy, rising non-farm incomes and changing consumption preferences, SBI is actively doing the role of a grass-roots banker.
It has continued to surpass the agri credit flow target set by the government of India, with its disbursement in 2016-17 crossing Rs 1,25,270 crore, 132 per cent more than the target of Rs 95,168 crore.
Even during the previous year, SBI recorded 114 per cent growth in disbursement at Rs 1,02,423 crore as against the target of Rs 89,781 crore.
During 2016-17, it introduced various technology-based solutions and products such as KCC-ATM-RuPay Cards to make farmers' lives easier while improving the operational efficiency for managing agriculture loans. In addition to the products like Asset Backed Agri Loan, and Tatkal Tractor Loan launched earlier, SBI launched new products for financing green house cultivation and solar photovoltaic water pumping systems, among others.
SBI has always been in the forefront of technology enablement for the rural-semi urban areas by providing core banking solutions, coupled with ATMs, cash deposit machines, point of sale (PoS) machines and micro ATMs.
Early this week, SBI's move to raise Rs 15,000 crore through a qualified institutional placement (QIP) of shares, the largest to hit Indian markets, received excellent response from institutional investors. The QIP that closed on Tuesday morning received demand in excess of Rs 20,000 crore, with the Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) bidding for half of the offering. In fact, the share sale surpassed its own Rs 8,000-crore issue in January 2014.
Arundhati’s push
Of the SBI’s total 17,170 branches, 64 per cent are in rural and semi-urban areas.
The bank has a network of 24,017 branches and 59,263 ATMs, serving over 42 crore customers.
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