The country?s largest lender, State Bank of India, is planning to open a thousand new branches and 10,000 more ATMs by the end of the current fiscal.
“Nearly 20% of the new ATMs would be designed to interact with customers, especially those who are visually-impaired,” said SBI chairman OP Bhatt, while addressing the 54th annual general meeting of shareholders of the bank, in Mumbai on Friday. Other customer-friendly measures include branches that are open on Sundays and off hours.
Bhatt said the bank had no plans for an IPO, rights issue or even GDR/ADRs issues as of now. He said the bank would try to maintain its net interest margin at around 2.5% by the fiscal-end. Defending the low return per share, Bhatt said it was because of the sliding prime lending rates, which was the result of the economic slowdown.
He said there was no immediate plan for capital raising and even denied any plans for taking over ICICI Bank. He said the bank is planning to scale-up the branch network, with plans to cover an additional 50,000 villages in the current fiscal. The bank’s loan processing capacity has been enhanced by setting up additional rural central processing centres. The number has been raised to 158 in March, with plans to increase them to 300 by the fiscal-end.
Bhatt said to improve quality of lending and diversification of portfolios, area development schemes have been prepared under the national business plan, covering thrust areas of horticulture, dairy, fisheries, food processing and biotechnology. The bank is also in the process of setting up a dedicated bullion branch at Mumbai to undertake bullion business in a focused manner.