Company Background - SBI

SBI, started as Imperial Bank then named State Bank of India commenced its operations from the year 1955, is the largest commercial bank in India in terms of profits, assets, deposits, branches and employees. As of March 2008, the bank has had 21 subsidiaries and 10,000 branches. SBI offering the services of banking and as well as non- banking services to their customers. It provides a whole range of financial services which includes Life Insurance, Merchant Banking, Mutual Funds, Credit Cards, Factoring, Security Trading & Primary dealership in the Money market. The Bank is actively involved in non-profit activity called community services banking apart from its normal banking activity.

The bank also concentrate in agriculture, for that it took initiative spotlight kharif and spotlight rabi campaigns for higher disbursement. It introduced Automated Teller Machine with Kishan Credit Cards in all circles to assist agriculture peoples, cumulatively the bank has credit linked 7.68 lac Self Help Groups and disbursed loans to the extent of Rs 3,468 crs, so far. In the year 2001 the SBI Life was started. SBI is the only Bank to have been permitted a 74% stake in the insurance business. The Bank's insurance subsidiary "SBI Life Insurance Company" is a joint venture with Cardif S.A holds 26% stake. SBI Life enjoys the unique distinction of being the first private sector life insurance company in India to make profits for two consecutive years.

During the year 2004-05 SBI was the only one bank in India to ranked among top 100 banks in the world and also among the top 20 banks in Asia in the annual survey by "The Banker" as well as in the same year bank received two prestigious awards for technology from the same The Banker magazine. In the year 2005-06 the bank introduced "SBI e-tax" an online tax payments facility for direct and indirect tax payment, the centralized pension processing center also launched during the year. SBI made a partnership with Tata Consultancy Services for setup C-Edg Technologies and consulting services to the banking, financial services and insurance industry. The bank noted as The most preferred bank in a survey by TV 18 in association with AC Nielsen-ORG Marg along with SBI voted as The most preferred housing loan provider in AWAAZ consumer awards for 2006. In the customer loyalty survey 2006-07 conducted by "Business World", SBI has been ranked number One in all parameters of customer satisfication, service orientation, customer care/ call center, customer loyalty and home loans. SBI Funds (SBIFMPL) was judged "Mutual fund of the year" by CNBC/TV-18/CRISL. SBI FMBL Equity schemes won 11 awards and ranging of the AMC in terms of Assets under management remained at 7th position during the year 2006-07. SBI cards is in 2nd position in the country under market share. During the year 2006-07 14.81 lac additional cards were issued by SBI and they crossed the landmark of 3 million cards totally.

The strategic initiatives that SBI have launched business groups in 2007 namely rural and agri business; treasury and marketing; corporate strategy and new business; and fourth mid corporate group is on the anvil. They also introduced new products and services such as web-based remittance, instant fund transfer, online-trading, comprehensive cash management.

SBI opened its 10,000th branch in March 2008, it becomes only the second bank in the world to have more than 10,000 branches after China's ICBC. SBI is pursuing aggressive IT policy, where the Automated Teller Machines are now also enabled to pay utility bills, college fees, book air-line tickets and accept donations, further bilateral sharing of ATMs was extended to thirteen banks covering 15,700 Automated Teller Machines and an Memorandum of Understanding has been signed with the Indian railways for installing ATMs at 682 railway stations. Infrastructure fund, private equity, venture capital and pension fund management are under in process to assist the customer in time. SBI is targeting to emerge as the best rated bank among public, private, foreign and state -owned banks by the end of the next fiscal. Employee Stock Option Scheme, where employees have the option to pick up shares as per their needs is avail in SBI. SBI plans to implement the mobile banking technology will soon with aim of customer will no be just "Branch customers" but will be "Bank customers".