After implementing extensive expansion plans, the public sector banks(PSBs) are now busy preparing the blueprint to augment their productivity and lift up their profitability for 2010-11 fiscal.
The economic recession in the recent past has taught them to increase their productivity and protect profitability with constraints around, bankers told FE.
The PSBs have not been as profitable as the private and foreign banks and the key to increase their profitability lies in increased productivity, they said.
A senior official of SBI said the bank?s per employee business productivity has increased to Rs 6.79 crore in 2009-10 from Rs 5.56 crore in 2008-09. ?We hope to push our per employee productivity beyond Rs 8 crore (almost a 20% jump) in 2010-11,?? he said. SBI is looking at a growth of 20-25% in its net profit by the end of the current fiscal.
The move by the bank to scale up its profit assumes significance as its net profit remained almost flat at Rs 9,166 crore for the year 2009-10, against Rs 9,121 crore in the previous fiscal.
Punjab National Bank (PNB) chairman & managing director KR Kamath said the plans are afoot to increase bank?s per employee business productivity during the current fiscal by growing volume and leveraging technology.
Bank of Baroda chief MD Mallya said, ?Per employee business productivity of my bank, as on March 31, 2010, stood at Rs 11 crore. We want to increase it by 25%. We would leverage on our ongoing BPR (business process re-engineering) exercises.??
HSU Kamath, executive director, Canara Bank, said that the bank?s business per employee as on December, 2009, was at Rs 8.58 crore, as against Rs 7.05 crore achieved by the bank during the corresponding period of the previous fiscal.
Though the business plans of the bank for the current fiscal are not yet ready, the bank is planning to increase its credit offtake by 18-20% and its deposits by 20-22% during the current fiscal.
?In case it happens so, it will definitely replicate in the improvement of the per-employee business productivity of my bank,?? he added.
Bank of India executive director M Narendra said as on December 31, 2009, the bank?s per employee business productivity was at Rs 9.13 crore.
?We plan to raise it up to Rs 11 crore (almost 25% increase) by the end of the current fiscal. It will be possible to do it as the bank?s business would cross Rs 5 lakh crore by the end of the fiscal from Rs 4 lakh crore. Though we will be recruiting 5,000 fresh staff during the year, it is not likely to affect our per employee business productivity as on an average 25% of bank?s employees are set to retire within three to four years.
AP Shukla, general manager & head of HR, Central Bank of India, said per employee productivity at they bank, as on December 31, 2009, was at Rs 6.97 crore. ?We hope that it will cross the mark of Rs 7.5 crore by the end of the current fiscal.?