The history of State Bank of Hyderabad (SBH) dates back to 1941, when it was established as Hyderabad State Bank. After being taken over by the Reserve Bank of India as its first subsidiary in 1956, Hyderabad State Bank was rechristened SBH, and in 1959 it became a subsidiary of SBI.
The bank has grown by leaps and bounds and today stands tall with a balance sheet size of Rs 88,000 crore and a total branch network of 977 branches as of January-end 2008. Ask Amitabha Guha, managing director of the bank, on the secret behind the success and he replies, ?Besides our brand entity (as part of the SBI group), the key drivers for our growth have been a proactive approach vis-?-vis customers, faster product delivery than most banks, and an excellent management team.? The bank has been able to grow its business, improve its quality of work and customer services because of its credible team at the management, zonal office, and regional office level.
SBH has brand equity in the state of Andhra Pradesh (AP) because the bank has local origin and flavour, and has been able to develop a fond relationship with the people of the state. AP used to contribute 60% to the bank?s business and 40% used to come from outside AP. With diversification and products offered by the bank to the client at large, there has been an erosion in the share of business, and now AP contributes to only 40% of the total business.
The turning point took place during the years 2004-07, when the bank saw a quantum jump in business. In March 2005 the bank touched the Rs 45,000 crore-mark in total business. ?I would say that 2005 was a landmark year because in December 2005 we converted the entire branch network from distributed technology to centralised technology. This networking created a platform to launch various centralised processing systems. This has added to the value of customer services offered today. Another landmark year was 2007 because we were cosponsors for a financial inclusion project initiated in the Warangal district in AP. The mandal allotted to us was Rayaparthy, where 23 villages were undertaken by SBH as part of the project,? he says.
Over the years, the focus of the bank has been very balanced. ?We are targeting mega power projects as also self help groups (SHGs) in the remote part of the state. The agriculture sector, SMEs, and the retail sector are the bank?s priorities,? Guha said. The bank targets to close the year with a business of Rs 90,000 crore, as against Rs 88,000 crore in January 2008.
SBH has targeted a credit growth of 24% this year, as against the 34% growth achieved last year, but a review of the performance post-January suggests the bank would be able to close the fiscal with a growth of 28%. The growth that is being targeted would be essentially driven by good delivery and to ensure that the bank has central processing units at nine centres for the SME and retail sector, and for corporate accounts it has developed a mechanism at the head office, which ensures very quick delivery of credit. ?I can say with a reasonable level of confidence that SBH can match any major bank in the country when it comes to delivery of credit. It is appropriate to say here that though we have been able to reduce the delivery time very significantly, there has been no compromise in the quality of credit. This reflects in the gross NPA of the bank, which is at 1.17% and net NPA, which stands at 0.27%,? he said, adding that the bank intends to bring down gross NPAs to less then 1% and net NPAs to 0.22%. It plans to take the branch network up to 1,000 by March 2008.
Speaking on the merger with SBI, Guha said, ?The process is on. As part of this process, State Bank of Saurashtra (SBS) was to first be integrated with SBI. Once SBS gets integrated, the position will be reviewed and further action will be taken regarding other subsidiaries. There is no set time frame for this.?