State Bank of India (SBI) is in the process of setting up a fund with an initial corpus of Rs 500 crore to cater to the financial needs of the small and medium enterprises (SME) sector.
The public sector bank will hold 20% stake in the fund and the balance will be given to private equity (PE) funds. The fund is likely to be in place by the end of the year, once the bank gets the necessary approval from the regulatory authorities.
O P Bhatt, chairman of SBI said the initial corpus of Rs 500 crore will be the first tranche and some more might come at a later stage.
To have a more customer-oriented approach, the bank is appointing customer representative executives at every branch. The bank is also trying to reorient its existing staff to become more customer centric. ?The bank is also reworking and redesigning the layout of the branches to accommodate more customer amenities. The process is already on at 3,000 branches of the bank?, he said.
On the other hand, to motivate its workforce, the bank is looking at bringing in incentive packages for its employees. ?We are working with IIMs to see if we can come out with something like ethical incentives for our employees?, Bhatt said.
Talking about the merger of its subsidiaries with SBI, Bhatt, ?depending on the experience of the merger of State Bank of Saurashtra with SBI we will decide on the other mergers.?