Comments
State Bank of Patiala will in the coming months focus efforts on becoming a ‘retail player’ in the banking industry, its Managing Director SA Ramesh Rangan has said.
This public sector bank will pursue a retail-focused strategy even while consolidating on the corporate lending front, where slippages had risen and led to higher stressed assets.
To enhance its retail focus, this bank plans to add at least 100 new branches to its network in the next 3-6 months, Rangan told BusinessLine in an interview here.
For the next fiscal, SBP is eyeing 15 per cent business growth led mainly by lending to agriculture and MSME segments.
Currently, SBP has a branch network of about 1,180 branches.
"We will completely be retail focused now. So far we have not been known to be a retail player. In our journey, we went into corporate lending in big way in recent times and this has to some extent impacted our balance sheet", Rangan said.
SBP will by this month end look to sell at least Rs 600-700 crore of NPAs to asset reconstruction firms, according to Rangan.
BRICK AND MORTAR
The new retail focused branches will be small and nimble footed, but most of them will be brick and mortar ones.
"Brick and mortar are still not out of our radar even as business correspondent model is being tried. Brick and motor branches are not unviable. But yes we have to be careful."
Rangan said that the bank is also toying with the idea of having a mobile ultra small branch. Under this plan, an ultra small branch will be placed in a mobile van that could visit various earmarked villages in specified days of the week.
GREEN CONCEPT BRANCH
SBP has now tied up with Desh Bhagat University in Punjab to have a green concept branch (without footfalls).
It will be a technology focused branch and for only computer savvy customers in this University. This branch will be opened in mid-April.
"There will only be one manager level officer who will sit at the branch and no other employees. There will be no over the counter transactions.
Customers will have interaction with the manager only for KYC purposes. After KYC verification banking could be done through internet and mobile platforms or ATMs located in this branch"
If this green branch concept takes off, SBP will not be averse to allowing the university itself to do the KYC, Rangan said.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.