The country’s largest lender State Bank of India (SBI) aims to hire around 10,000 new employees during the current financial year to meet its general banking needs and boost its technology capabilities.
The bank has invested heavily in technology to provide seamless customer service and strengthen the resilience of its digital channels.
“We are strengthening our workforce, both on the technical side and on the banking side in general. We have recently announced the recruitment of about 1,500 technical people both at entry level and senior level,” SBI Chairman CS Setty told PTI in an interview.
“Our technical recruitment is in specialized jobs such as data scientists, data architects, network operators etc. We are recruiting them to do various jobs on the technical side… 10,000 people will be added on the specialized and general sides,” he said.
The bank’s total workforce stood at 2,32,296 as of March 2024. Of this, 1,10,116 officers were on the bank’s roll at the end of last fiscal.
Asked about skill building, Setty said, it is an ongoing activity and the bank is re-skilling and up-skilling existing employees to meet the needs of emerging customers.
“Customer expectations are changing, technology is changing, digitalization is widely accepted. Therefore, we are constantly updating our staff at all levels,” he said.
Apart from that, he said, the bank provides specialized skills in certain areas to meet the growing demand of customers and provide a high-quality banking experience.
Regarding network expansion, Setty said, SBI plans to open 600 branches across the country this financial year.
SBI has a network of 22,542 branches across the country as of March 2024.
“We have strong plans to expand branches…This will focus more on emerging areas. Many residential areas are not covered by us. About 600 branches is what we are planning this year,” he said.
Apart from a large network of branches, SBI reaches its customers through 65,000 ATMs and 85,000 business correspondents.
“We serve about 50 customers and we are proud to be the banker for every Indian, and most importantly, for every Indian family,” he said.
He also said that it will be his effort to transform SBI into a better bank, a bank that is valued not only from the perspective of shareholders but also from all the stakeholders who interact with SBI.
“It could be my customers, it could be our shareholders, it could be the larger ecosystem — the community, the institutional framework — all stakeholders should say that this is the best bank to deal with,” he added.
