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Making the elephant dance O P Bhatt's efforts at re-energising SBI win him the Banker of the year award
The SBI chairman has many reasons to be pleased with the performance of his bank. Though the numbers are still not impressive enough, he gives statistics to show how SBI has been able to arrest the steep slide in its market share since September last year. The market share in deposits has gone up by 61 basis points since September last year. Bhatt agrees that the numbers for 2006-07 need to improve but says the process is bound to take some time. “Please remember, over 4,000 of our branches give only 7-8 per cent of the business as they were set up for a larger social agenda. But if you take our metro and urban branches, the progress has been satisfactory since I took over. For example, the deposit per employee of SBI’s metro & urban branches was Rs 526 lakh in FY 2007 compared with an average Rs 552 lakh in the top three private banks. If you take advances per employee, SBI’s figures were higher at Rs 446 lakh compared with Rs 432 lakh in the top private banks,” the chairman says. Bhatt’s blueprint for regaining the lost glory of the country’s premier bank has a wide range of must-dos. Currently, only three per cent of SBI’s individual customers are from the mass affluent segment and Bhatt says he wants to bring the rich back to the SBI fold by offering customised solutions. SBI is also entering seven new business streams – financial planning and advisory services, custodial services, mobile banking, payments solutions, general insurance and pension funds.
The first SBI chairman to get a five-year term says his first preference was to join the IAS but his parents insisted that he take up the SBI probationary officer’s job. The reason was obvious: in 1972, SBI was paying Rs 925 a month, which was Rs 75 more than an IAS salary in those days. Thirty five years later, he is glad that he listened to his parents. The bank has given everything that a middle-class pahari (he is from the Garhwal region of Uttaranchal) like him could ever dream of. Trying to make the elephant dance has, of course, meant a lot of personal sacrifices. For example, he doesn’t remember when he last took leave; and weekends mean taking home at least three suitcases of files on Saturday evenings. But that’s perhaps a small price to pay when you have to steer the turnaround of India’s largest bank.• Business Standard • December 2007 |
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If
you happen to meet the chairman of India’s largest commercial
bank these days, chances are you will come back with a bagful of
“SBI jokes”. O P Bhatt, who entered the corner office
on the 18th floor of the bank’s sprawling headquarters in Mumbai
18 months back, loves sharing these jokes about the new work culture
in SBI. For, he thinks they capture the new spirit of his 200,000
employees.