Hyderabad: Public sector banks have a strong middle-class value system and that is what O P Bhatt, chairman of State Bank of India (SBI), is out to preserve.
And how does he plan to do it? By putting in place an “ethical incentive” scheme for the employees who, he believes, will not leave even though SBI does not offer high pay packages such as those offered by private and foreign banks.
SBI is seeking to put in place a structure that does not destroy the value system that has been ingrained into the employees’ genes for generations, Bhatt said.
A team of professors from the Indian Institutes of Management is being drafted to develop the incentive scheme, he said at a banking conference at the Indian School of Business in Hyderabad.
The “Chairman’s Club” at SBI is one such attempt where high performers are invited with their spouse to have dinner at the chairman’s house. The experience does more than what a financial incentive can achieve, he stressed.
“Remember we are a public sector bank and have constraints. We can’t throw money like these guys,” Bhatt said even as his rivals, Axis Bank chairman & CEO PJ Nayak and Citigroup India CEO Sanjay Nayar, watched on in some discomfort at the panel discussion on Competitiveness of Indian Commercial Banks.
Since he took over as the chairman of India’s largest bank in 2006, Bhatt has been on a mission to transform the bank into a competitive and modern entity through a programme called Parivartan.
More recently, as part of a new hub and spoke system, where the branches will only be front-ending operations, 3,000 branches have been redesigned for better customer relations.
Soon, SBI will have computerised queue management systems where a customer can seek services such as bank drafts etc by appointment.
More importantly, addressing the talent shortage issue the bank is recruiting 20,000 more this year.
“This is the single-highest intake anywhere in the world and you could enter us into the Guinness Book of World Records for this,” he said.
But then it is not just customer relations that matters, came the repartee from Citi’s Nayar, who insisted foreign bankers do not necessarily work only for money.
“A significant number of our new small and medium enterprises clients are from SBI and other PSU banks. This goes to show that banking is more than just customer service,” Nayar said.
He asked Bhatt to direct his managers to start cross-selling products and services. “That will make our life more difficult,” Nayar jousted.
“The competitive positioning of Citi is based on the universal banking model and we have been growing well despite the constrained by regulation and restricted market access and high tax rates in India,” Nayar said, demanding a level playing field between Indian and foreign banks in the country.
And how does he plan to do it? By putting in place an “ethical incentive” scheme for the employees who, he believes, will not leave even though SBI does not offer high pay packages such as those offered by private and foreign banks.
SBI is seeking to put in place a structure that does not destroy the value system that has been ingrained into the employees’ genes for generations, Bhatt said.
A team of professors from the Indian Institutes of Management is being drafted to develop the incentive scheme, he said at a banking conference at the Indian School of Business in Hyderabad.
The “Chairman’s Club” at SBI is one such attempt where high performers are invited with their spouse to have dinner at the chairman’s house. The experience does more than what a financial incentive can achieve, he stressed.
“Remember we are a public sector bank and have constraints. We can’t throw money like these guys,” Bhatt said even as his rivals, Axis Bank chairman & CEO PJ Nayak and Citigroup India CEO Sanjay Nayar, watched on in some discomfort at the panel discussion on Competitiveness of Indian Commercial Banks.
Since he took over as the chairman of India’s largest bank in 2006, Bhatt has been on a mission to transform the bank into a competitive and modern entity through a programme called Parivartan.
More recently, as part of a new hub and spoke system, where the branches will only be front-ending operations, 3,000 branches have been redesigned for better customer relations.
Soon, SBI will have computerised queue management systems where a customer can seek services such as bank drafts etc by appointment.
More importantly, addressing the talent shortage issue the bank is recruiting 20,000 more this year.
“This is the single-highest intake anywhere in the world and you could enter us into the Guinness Book of World Records for this,” he said.
But then it is not just customer relations that matters, came the repartee from Citi’s Nayar, who insisted foreign bankers do not necessarily work only for money.
“A significant number of our new small and medium enterprises clients are from SBI and other PSU banks. This goes to show that banking is more than just customer service,” Nayar said.
He asked Bhatt to direct his managers to start cross-selling products and services. “That will make our life more difficult,” Nayar jousted.
“The competitive positioning of Citi is based on the universal banking model and we have been growing well despite the constrained by regulation and restricted market access and high tax rates in India,” Nayar said, demanding a level playing field between Indian and foreign banks in the country.
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