Saturday, September 01, 2012

IN THE FAST LANE

Last year’s slowdown was a blessing in disguise for the public sector behemoth SBI, forcing it to become truly competitive. And the bank has only moved ahead since then. Avneesh Singh finds out how

Financial inclusion may be a buzzword for India Inc. but when it comes to groundwork, a majority of them falter. But not this “Banker to Every Indian” for whom ‘inclusion’ is about carpet bombing the Indian geography with its presence, a strategy that has seen it (leave aside the associate banks) reach over 12,450 branches and 16,584 ATMs across India. In fact, in the next two years, the drive is barbarically brobdingnagian (if one could use such a term) for SBI wishes to now get 1,00,000 un-banked villages in its connectivity map! What’s more? At a time when trust was witnessing a free fall, this bank everyday attracted more than `1.7 billion average deposits (during FY2010). While deposits were up by `620 billion (a 8.36% yoy growth – from `7.42 trillion in March 2009 to `8.04 trillion in March 2010), gross advances too were up by `929.40 billion registering a growth of 16.94% from `5.48 trillion in March 31, 2009 to `6.41 trillion in March 31, 2010.

Not surprisingly, the net interest income rose by a significant 13.41% to `236.71 billion in FY 2010 (up from `208.73 billion in FY 2009). And the reason for all this is interestingly in one area. When banks were shunning retail customers, SBI took the lead in lending to the ‘shunned class’ and consequently became the single largest retail lender in India (education loan up by 34.61%, auto loan up by 45.44% and housing loan portfolio up by 31.69%). Even in corporate lending, SBI diversified its loans across segments, thereby minimising the probability of loss. In fact, the large corporate loans reported a significant jump of 18.51% during the last fiscal. But that does not mean that it has completely ignored the bottom of the pyramid, which for the fact makes over 90% of India’s total population. As part of its microfinance programme SBI has credit linked more than 1.71 million self help groups across India with cumulative credit of `115.62 billion.

When asked about the secret behind this stellar performance, S. K. Bhattacharya, MD, SBI told B&E: “performing well has become a habbit for employees at SBI. No doubt, top management devices strategies and policies, but the real business takes at the branch level. So, it’s the employees of the bank who should be credited for this performance.” Further, thanks to a resurgent focus on maintaining a cost effective operating architecture, the bank has successfully brought down the average cost of deposits by 50 basis points to 5.80% and kept its net NPA (non performing assets) at 1.72% (of gross assets) as on March 31, 2010. In fact, the ratio of high cost bulk deposits to total domestic deposits too has come down from 10.74% in March 31, 2009 to 1.79% in March 31, 2010.


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