Bringing in innovations and being receptive to new ideas — without getting uprooted from distinctive socioeconomic and cultural ethos — has helped Syndicate Bank survive the ups and downs of the banking industry down the decades.

“The bank had a vision of future India. The philosophy of growth by mutual sustenance of both the bank and its customers has paid rich dividend to us,” said MD and CEO Arun Shrivastava at the bank’s 91st Foundation Day celebrations.

“Today the bank is well equipped to meet the challenges of the 21st century in the areas of IT, knowledge and competition,” he added.

As part of the celebrations, Shrivastava, along with Executive Directors RS Pandey and SS Mallikarjuna Rao, launched six initiatives under Project Ananya to enhance and simplify the customer experience. These include 91 transformed branches with better ambience, enhanced customer service and digital channels; a National Processing Centre; instant account opening facilities at 221 branches across India; and a retail loan centre for end-to-end loan processing, with a turnaround time of two weeks and two customer visits.

Also four new technology products were launched.