Personal finance is the buzzword in SBI mktg strategy

Sitanshu Swain

Mumbai, Jan 6: State Bank of India (SBI) is, for the first time, roping in its corporate account group to provide personal finance services to the employees of top corporates.

According to SBI chairman Janki Ballabh in these days of low credit offtake by corporates, the bank will focus on cross selling and leverage the large customer base and vast distribution network.
“Today’s banking has changed and what we plan to offer is the extra value to the customer and bring about volumes in the personal finance business,” said Mr Ballabh.

The bank is training its employees suitably for implementing the new marketing strategy.

For example, the relationship managers of the corporate account group, who normally handle financial needs of the top corporates, have been asked to explore the need of personal finance products including mutual funds and insurance needs of the employees of the company, which is being serviced.

To realise the synergies, the bank is cross-selling products like credit cards, housing loans, consumer loans and gold banking products, he said.

This is apart from the bank’s initiative in personal banking, which also focuses on high networth individuals through 100 specialised personal banking branches with excellent ambience, high technology and skilled staff offering a full range of services.

The personal finance segment, which is almost 15 per cent of SBI’s current lending portfolio estimated to be over Rs 1 lakh crore, can grow to 20 per cent in two years, Mr Ballabh said.

So far the group has been instrumental in marketing commercial paper, non-convertible debentures and bonds issued by top-rated corporates.

In the highly competitive housing loan market, the bank has set a target of Rs 4,000 crore for housing finance during the current fiscal.
To support its initiatives, the bank has made significant strides in technology and is investing in a strong technology backbone to harness its strengths. A significant development was the networking of bank’s 200 ATMs across 20 cities in the country, which will reduce the workload on the branch staffers who can then be utilised in marketing the personal finance products.

“We are in the process of adding more cities and ATMs to the network, which will create one of the largest ATM networks in the country. Besides, the bank’s Internet banking solution will cover 350 branches by March,” said the SBI chairman.