State Bank of India website goes generic New web address is www.bank.sbi

Chennai, February 20 (IANS): The State Bank of India (SBI) on Monday announced rebranding of its website as bank.sbi. According SBI, the new domain name bank.sbi is the highest domain protocol known as generic top level domain (gTLD), an official statement.

"The SBI group has several businesses. For those wanting to do banking or want to know about the bank it is easier to type out www.bank.sbi." M.K. Rekhi, General Manager -Social Media.

The SBI group having presence in insurance, mutual fund and card may also go for such Generic top-level domain (gTLD). With this, SBI has become the first banking organisation in India to use a gTLD for its online presence and providing an exclusive experience of assurance and security to its customers.

"SBI being the largest bank has always been the pioneer in adapting new technology. SBI has always believed in providing high-tech yet secure internet experience to its customers. Bank's own gTLD is another step in this direction," SBI's Chairman Arundhati Bhattacharya said in a statement.

Bank's own gTLD aims at simplifying the digital experience of customers and brings in enhanced security against phishing and lookalike websites. Due to its non-replicability, a gTLD site like ".sbi" conveys an assurance to the customer that the site is authorised, genuine and is not an inappropriate or phishing site.

The existing site of sbi.co.in will continue till customers get used to the new avtar of SBI's secure website.

SBI's Work-From-Home Option for Women, How Feasible is the Move?

SBI Chairman Arundhati Bhattacharya’s novel idea of providing women employees of SBI with a work-from-home option is sure to stir up a hornet’s nest in the coming days.

Arundhati Bhattacharya, the first woman to head the bank ever, has said that she would be looking at ways to increase retention of women staff. While 38-40% of recruits were women, their high dropout rate and absenteeism resulted in women accounting for just of 20% of the workforce.

At present, the strength of women employees in the total workforce of the bank is 45,132, which constitutes slightly more than 20% of the total staff strength of 2,22,033. Bhattacharya said that the dropouts were for various reasons, including looking after children, to relocate or to look after the elderly.

After she took charge, the bank announced that it would allow women to take a two-year sabbatical from work in case they want it for children's education or taking care of parents.

Maybe Ms. Bhattacharya’s initiative doesn’t stem from a modern-day compulsion alone. In fact, in the late 18th and early 19th century, around the same time SBI was founded, working women, especially mothers, in Europe increasingly found it difficult to combine paid labour with familial responsibilities due to the demanding nature of the new industrial job in textile and clothing factories.

As their contribution to the aforementioned industries couldn’t be underplayed, the concept of ‘separation of workplace from home’ was done away with in order to accommodate their twin roles. Thus, working mothers found solace by engaging with home-based work through the setting up of small-scale workshops.

Though the Industrial Revolution redefined the spheres of ‘domesticity’ and ‘home’ as exclusively feminine, it also brought about a transformation of workplace and newer representations of gender.

Thus male workers/employees came to be solely engaged in economic activity while staying aloof from child-raising and household chores. Women, on the other hand, had to constantly concern themselves with maternity and motherhood.

A lot of what sexual division of labour at the professional level shows us from the past continues to impact working women of the present. Of course, the ‘natural’ order of things cannot be compromised for any revolutionary change in gender functions thereby work-from-home option ‘has’ to be a convenience only for working mothers.

Over the years, feminist groups have been calling for equal pay and status for women in the professional sphere. At the same time, there has been an outcry over the reservation tactic employed to ‘privilege’ women, as achieving equality through a social transformation is a long-drawn process.

The SBI initiative makes sense only in case of maternity leave and not for any other reason, like child’s education and taking care of parents as cited by the company, which could be carried out by a working father as well. Why does such a facility favour only women when it should ideally be granted on the nature of given work irrespective of gender considerations?

So, a more comprehensive solution would be to extend this benefit even to male employees who, albeit in minority cases, would want to stay on at home for the same purpose.

The doubts over technological feasibility can wait. What demands far greater attention is the gender disparity it creates in the quest for a diluting a patriarchal setup, both in the domestic and professional spheres.

Apart from this flaw on the gender front, the move has been tried and tested by American multinational company, Yahoo whose CEO Marissa Mayer decided on the ban on work-from-home after spending months frustrated at how empty Yahoo parking lots were and after consulting Yahoo's VPN logs to see if remote employees were checking in enough.

Her argument was quite logical, "People are more productive when they're alone, but they're more collaborative and innovative when they're together. Some of the best ideas come from pulling two different ideas together."

Lots of people around the country and world work from home these days, and many of them - particularly mothers - seemed to view Mayer's ban as a threat on their way of working.

But productivity would take a huge hit due to the lack of a monitoring system and a phenomenal risk of many employees availing the benefit as opposed to an office desk job. Instead, a more plausible solution would be to limit the period of work-from home duties to a maximum of 2-3 years in the case of employees who’ve applied for leave owing to secondary domestic responsibilities.

Another way to prevent many employees from availing this benefit would be to introduce a pay-cut of 20-30%. This is to be done keeping in mind the ‘additional advantages’ enjoyed by work-from employees as they wouldn’t incur either travel (thereby saving time) or overhead expenses (like fuel and maintenance). On the flip side, it could create more job opportunities in any sector providing the work-from home option.

There is also an environmental good, though small: resultant reduction in the use of private/company vehicles brings down pollution levels.

There has to be a complete overhaul of the labour laws allowing paid and casual leave in the event of an employee already benefiting from the work-from home scheme. In extremely veritable cases, the remote employees could be allowed flexible working hours depending on the time they would have to invest for other purposes.

However, as of now, the idea appears too far-fetched and unattainable. Perhaps, the single-most impediment would be on the technical feasibility considering the geographical spread of the SBI’s branches.

Instead, why not devise a system by which employees aren’t subjected to regular transfers far from their hometown? Or maybe even setup crèche facilities for a temporary period?

It is, therefore not at all surprising that modern private banking institutions like HDFC and ICICI haven’t mulled over such innovations precisely due to the fallout in productive capacity of the company.

Thus, the scheme is beset with a two-fold complication: Firstly, the need to extend the option to all employees if introduced as a company policy and secondly, to develop suitable technology to oversee the work done by them.

Ultimately, the wisdom of the primary stakeholders, i.e. the employees and industry experts have to be consulted before any fast-track measure is in the offing. Like Margaret Heffernan once said, “For good ideas and true innovation, you need human interaction, conflict, argument, debate”.

Written by Carl Jaison on The Seasonal Magazine, Published on December 16, 2014

PSU Bankers are paid poorly: SBI Chairman

New Delhi, December 11: Lamenting that bankers are paid very poorly in India, especially at public sector banks, SBI chief Arundhati Bhattacharya today said there is an urgent need to provide better remuneration to attract good talent.

Bankers are paid poorly in India as compared to their counterparts elsewhere in the world, she said.  “Let me start with income of banking professionals in India. Here, 70 per cent of the banks are in public sector and they are paid very very poorly compared to market,” she said at Delhi Economic Conclave here.

The SBI chief said there is urgent need to improve quality of board members by providing them suitable remuneration so that the overall efficiency improves.

“We are very blessed in that. SBI has invariably had very good quality board. But that may not be true across (other banks’) board. One of the reasons is very low remuneration that is given to the board directors,” she said.

“If you are trying to attract best in the field, they have to be remunerated accordingly. We must insist on people who are coming into the board having sufficient hands on experience in both planning and execution in their respective areas,” she said. So, this is something that government can easily implemented and should be done, she added.

The comments come about a week after PSU bank employee unions went to a four-day relay strike to press for early revision of wages.

With regard to governance, she said P J Nayak Committee has very clearly laid out certain roadmap as to how governance can be taken forward.  “I believe the government is looking at it. While they do look at it, I believe there are very some low-hanging fruits and those could be easily implemented within a short period of time,” she added.

Talking about changing regulation in tune with the present system, Bhattacharya said India has over 60 Acts and multiple rules and regulations that govern the financial system at the moment. “Many of the laws are from 1950s and 1960s. The banking regulations themselves they were established before ATMs, credit cards, internet banking, investment advisory, private banking, mutual funds,… whole lot of other things,” she said.

“These acts have been amended from time to time to keep pace with changing reality but the legal foundations have remain more or less static and as the result the framework is very complex and inconsistent,” she said. “Occasionally, it is also open to regulatory arbitrage. So, we need to look at these things also holistically and move the laws to be in tandem with the times,” she added.

With regard to improving governance, Bhattacharya also pitched for a good Whistle Blower policy with the objective to protect innocent and punish guilty.

“In the area of governance, its very important especially in the public sector banks to nurture and have a good Whistle Blower policy to ensure that people who actually give right information are properly rewarded and those who actually misuse the system they are penalised,” she said.

“We must free the public sector from the disgruntled and weapons of anonymous and superfluous complaints that they use. These complaints very often contain allegations that are totally full of lies but a lot of resources get tied up in looking into these things,” she added. Good people who have taken strong decision should not be unnecessary paralysed on account of false allegations, she said.

Chakrabarty frowns at SBI chief’s views on CRR phase-out

Chennai, Aug. 27: The Reserve Bank of India Deputy Governor, K. C. Chakrabarty, came down heavily on State Bank of India Chairman Pratip Chaudhuri’s views seeking the phase out of the cash reserve ratio (CRR), saying either comply or do business elsewhere.
Responding to a question, on the sidelines of a financial conference on systemic risk organised here on Monday by the Great Lakes Institute of Management, Chakrabarty said banks must work within the framework prescribed by the regulator. “If the SBI Chairman is not able to do the business in this regulatory environment, he has to find out some other place,” he said.
CRR is the percentage of deposits commercial banks keep with the central bank.
Pratip Chaudhuri recently said that CRR does not help anybody. “When CRR is not applicable to insurance companies, non-banking finance companies and mutual funds that also mobilise funds from the public, it is an unfair imposition on banks,” he said to make a point that the CRR adds to the cost of doing business for banks.

Knowledge helpline for SBI staff launched

Reserve Bank Governor D. Subbarao launched a ‘knowledge helpline’ for the staff of State Bank of India. The Web-based service, will be useful to the employees to get their doubts clarified about banking and in turn be more helpful to the customer in their service. The RBI Governor, who also inaugurated the “Swarn Udyan” and the renovated hostel blocks was the chief guest at the golden jubilee celebrations of the State Bank Staff College here on Friday. Speaking on the occasion, he said banks have to regain the trust and confidence of people. Banking sector is going to be involved and engaged in financial inclusion. It is required to understand the psychology and economy of poor people to enhance financial inclusion. There is a need for innovative infrastructure financing in India as we are supply constraint economy. SBI Chairman Pratip Chauduri and other dignitaries from the SBI, the RBI, other banks and educational institutions took part in the event. The State Bank Staff College set up in 1961 has emerged as a premier training institute for the banking industry. The college trains more than 6,000 officers every year, mostly middle- and senior-level executives, in credit management, international banking, leadership development, marketing skills, negotiation skills and communication skills etc. Several public and private sector banks in India as well as banks from developing countries like Sri Lanka, Ethiopia, Ghana, Maldives, etc., also send their officers for training. Several Govt. officials of revenue intelligence, enforcement directorate, CBI, income tax, central vigilance commission etc., are also trained in banking related areas at the College.

SBI expects 50 bps cut in CRR, no change in lending rate

India's largest lender State Bank today said it expects Reserve Bank to lower the mandatory cash reserve requirement of banks or CRR by 50 basis points on July 31 but sees no reduction in the key short-term lending rate.

 "We expect a 0.5 percentage point reduction in CRR (the percentage of deposits that banks park with the RBI) to ease money supply. Also, this will have better effect on monetary transmission than a reduction in the short-term lending rate," SBI Chairman Pratip Chaudhuri told reporters after announcing the successful conclusion of a USD 1.25 billion overseas bond sale.

 RBI will announce its first quarter monetary policy review on Tuesday in the backdrop of slowing growth, poor investment sentiment and persistently high inflation.

Yesterday, SBI had closed a mid-term note or bond issue at a coupon of 4.12%, making it the largest and cheapest bond sale by a domestic lender till date. Chaudhuri said the asset quality of the Government-run
bank has improving compared to last year. He did not give any further details citing a silent period ahead of the earnings.

 The bank will announce its April-June quarterly earnings on August 8. The comments came after SBI shares slumped as much as 3.8% today as a rise in non-performing assets at Punjab National Bank and Union Bank of India sparked concerns about asset quality in the Government-run lenders.

 Explaining the rationale behind why a CRR cut is better at this juncture, Chaudhuri said this will help bank's liquidity, which in turn, will help them lower the lending rates, thus helping the monetary transmission better.

On the contrary, he said a marginal reduction in the repo will not help banks to cut lending rates.The senior unsecured dollar bond issue, due in August 2017, was carried through the London branch of SBI. The issue was rated Baa2 by Moody's and BBB- by S&P.

Deficit monsoon to impact loan re-payment: SBI chief

Amid concerns over rising bad loans, SBI today sounded a note of caution saying that failure of monsoon will not only affect the economy but also banks as re-paying capacity of borrowers will come under pressure.

In view of the deficit monsoon rain, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has already directed all departments and ministries to coordinate with states to meet any eventuality by monitoring the situation on a weekly basis.

"If the monsoon fail it will (have) a cascading impact on credit growth as well as the economy which in turn will impact the re-paying capacity of borrowers," SBI chairman Pratip Chaudhuri told reporters in Mumbai.

He further said the State Bank of India (SBI) will assess the impact of monsoon after August 10 when the situation will become more clear.

Speaking on the impact of monsoon failure, PNB Chairman and Managing Director K R Kamath said in New Delhi that RBI has clearly defined norms for banks for agricultural credit in drought affected areas.

"If any of the area is affected by drought, there is very clearly defined scheme for restructuring of accounts of that particular area," he said while announcing the first quarter result of the bank.

Kamath does not expect the impact of deficient rains on NPAs related to farm credit to be much as there would re-structuring.

Gross non-performing assets (NPA) of PNB has risen to 3.34% at the end of three-month period ended June 30, 2012 as against 2% during the same period of last fiscal.

NPAs in public sector banks stood at about 3.3% of the assets in 2011-12 against 2.3% a year ago.

Meanwhile, IMD said it expects monsoon deficiency to narrow down in the coming days with improvement in rains.

Monsoon rains have been deficient by about 22% so far this year across the country with a worrisome situation in Karnataka, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Gujarat.

The government has also set up an Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) headed by Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar to review the monsoon situation.