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V Rishi Kumar
Notwithstanding the huge provisioning, piled up debt and ongoing cases in the National Company Law Tribunal, the country’s biggest lender SBI expects to be back on course to profitability from the September quarter.
“We had made huge provisions and believe the worst is over. Instead of making provisions over several quarters, we decided to take a hit once and for all. Now, we expect to do well from the September quarter itself and end the financial year on a profitable note,” said Rajnish Kumar, Chairman, State Bank of India.
Speaking to mediapersons here today, the SBI Chairman said: “Apart from provisioning, we have had to take a hit due to mark-to-market accounting. But having taken some bold decisions to make provisions, we are confident of doing well during the quarter and the fiscal.”
“The cases in NCLT I and II are at various stages, along with efforts to resolve some of the issues related to bad assets in the power sector. There has been good interest in the power sector, and it won’t be long before you will get to know about resolution of some of these cases,” he said.
When asked about the issues faced by Jet Airways and the reported proposal by Vijay Mallya to resolve issues related to pending dues, the SBI chief said: “We have not received any proposal and would not like to get into specific cases. In any case, when a proposal comes, we look at it with open mind.”
Corporate lending
“Lately, our lending focus was on consumers, home loans, personal and retail loans, and now there has been growing interest to lend to the corporate sector. We expect to see improvement in corporate lending and loans to SMEs,” said Rajnish Kumar.
“Our advances are over ₹20-lakh crore and even if there were 10 per cent growth in lending, it will work out to additional ₹2-lakh crore growth,” he said.
“The banking sector is witness to a phase of rapid changes and a paradigm shift in the way we bank and lend. The entire ATM network is being revamped and upgraded to ensure the network’s cyber security,” added Rajnish Kumar.
Recruitment
The SBI chief said the bank is in the process of recruiting 8,000 people in the clerical grade and about 2,000 as probationary officers. “We expect this process to be completed during the fiscal, and the overall staff strength will be round 2.5 lakh to 2.6 lakh,” he explained.
Nearly one crore people get added to the job market every year, and entrepreneurship is one area that is driving creation of new jobs. The government’s Mudra loans have brought about a sea change in creating a new generation of entrepreneurs, he said.
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