SBI, ICICI Bank lead peers in global branch network

Thiruvananthapuram, Nov. 14: State Bank of India and ICICI Bank appropriated to themselves the credit of running the most extensive global networks from among the country's public and private sector banks.

State Bank of India (SBI) owns the largest network of foreign offices (64) as at August-end, says the Report on Trend and Progress of Banking in India 2010-11.

Bank of Baroda followed with 60. Together, these two accounted for 51 per cent of total foreign offices of banks.

SBI also undertook the largest expansion of foreign operations by opening five new offices abroad during the year under reference.

ICICI Bank (19) led the private sector banks in terms of largest foreign presence.

FOREIGN BANKS

The number of foreign banks operating here is 38 (34 a year ago). The number of branches too rose to 321 (315). Another 47 (45) banks had representative offices.

Standard Chartered had the largest network, followed by HSBC, Citibank and the Royal Bank of Scotland.

Permission was granted to National Australia Bank, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Rabobank International and Woori Bank to open one branch each.

Besides, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation was allowed to open a representative office.

Foreign operations of Indian banks expanded to a network of 244 offices as compared with 233 offices in the previous year.

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SBI may not raise funds overseas this quarter, says MD

Mumbai, Nov. 14: State Bank of India is unlikely to raise funds from overseas markets in the October-December quarter, given the current liquidity and market conditions.

Market conditions are not conducive for raising funds, said Mr Hemant Contractor, Managing Director, International Banking Group. However, the bank may raise funds in the January-March quarter, he said, while speaking to newspersons at the India Economic Summit 2011, in Mumbai, on Monday.

On the likely issue size, he said that it will not be a small issue. The bank had doubled the size of its Medium Term Note programme to $10 billion earlier this year.

About SBI's exposure to the Euro-zone, Mr Contractor said the bank has sanctioned some short-term trade finance to countries such as the UK, Germany and Italy, but has no exposure to Greece.

With regard to domestic fund-raising, the bank is awaiting word from the Government about capital infusion, Mr Contractor said.

Recently, Mr Pratip Chaudhuri, Chairman, SBI, had said that there is a ‘categorical assurance' from the Government that it will infuse Rs 3,000-4,000 crore into the bank.

SBI's core capital is at 7.47 per cent, below the 8 per cent the Government requires public sector banks to maintain. SBI requires about Rs 40,000 crore over the next three years to support loan growth.

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SBI keen to tap home loan market in Bangladesh

Kolkata, Nov. 14: State Bank of India plans to tap the home loan market in Bangladesh in a big way.

The bank – which already has four branches in the country – plans to add four more by end December 2012 to tap the retail demand, said Mr Pratip Chaudhuri, Chairman, State Bank of India.

The bank has two branches in Dhaka, one in Chittagong and one in Sylhet. It also has licence for two more branches in Rajshahi and Khulna. The Bangladesh Government, Mr Chaudhuri said, has assured the bank of granting further licences for a branch at Narayanganj and a second branch at Chittagong once these two branches are operational.

“We want to do home loans in Bangladesh in a big way. The Bangladesh home loan market at present can be compared to the Indian home loan market about 15 years back,” Mr Chaudhuri said.

Citing example of the market in India, Mr Chaudhuri said, “The increase in the number of home loan providers and with a lot of new homes coming up has given a fillip to the Indian economy and boost to the industry. Similarly, we think Bangladesh has a huge untapped potential.”

Lack of availability of long-term finance was the key constraint for developing the home loan market, Mr Chaudhuri pointed out. “For doing wholesale business, you will not need long-term money but for retail and that too particularly home loans you need long term funds.”

State Bank has a total exposure of $300 million (approximately Rs 1,500 crore at the present exchange rate) in Bangladesh at present, Mr Chaudhuri said. A senior State Bank official heading a branch in Bangladesh said that the bank already has a retail exposure in the country. “There is a good scope for retail business and we are putting in place the infrastructure required for gearing it up further.”

The average ticket size of home loan in Bangladesh was about Rs 40 lakh. “Our presence is still not too large in the country so we have not been able to tap the mass market. But with these new branches operational we are hopeful of catering to the mass demand and our ticket size might come down further,” he said.

Not too many Indian banks have a branch network in Bangladesh at present though some banks have representative offices in the country. HSBC and Standard Chartered are some of the foreign banks doing retail business in Bangladesh, the official said.

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Women use their debit cards less frequently, reveals RBI survey

Mumbai, Nov. 14: This piece of information may give you some insight into how women deal with money. The Reserve Bank of India, in a survey, has found that they use their debit cards less frequently.

What one could deduce from this finding is that women prefer to use credit cards for shopping to avail themselves of the 45-day credit period. But when it comes to hard cash for daily needs, it is the hubby who swipes the debit card at an ATM.

“Women may be smarter when it comes to money matters. The 45-day free credit period that comes with shopping with a credit card is an irresistible attraction,” said Mr Sanjay Sharma, Managing Director IDBI Intech, a banking and financial service technology provider.

The number of debit and credit cards outstanding as at September-end 2011 was 25 crore and 1.76 crore respectively. Some of the other findings of the RBI's survey to assess customer satisfaction in the usage of ATMs across the country are: the use of cards for shopping was more among the youth; the use of debit cards for shopping was the highest in Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh.

Further, debit cards were mainly used for withdrawing cash or shopping purposes and the use of these cards for bills payment/ticket purchase was still low. The survey covered 600 ATMs distributed proportionately over metro, urban, semi-urban and rural regions, constituting one per cent of the total number of 60,000 ATMs in the country.

kram@thehindu.co.in

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StanChart to use social media sites to improve customer service

Chennai, Nov. 14:Have a complaint against a service or product of Standard Chartered Bank? Post it on Facebook or Twitter for quick action.

The bank will soon start using such social medium Web sites to improve customer service and solve the problems of a completely new set of online customers who are hooked on to such Web sites most part of the day.

The bank's technology group based out of Chennai will launch a pilot project to use social media networks to ‘listen' to what customers are saying about the bank. “It could be good or bad we need to react immediately,” said Ms Jaya Vaidhyanathan, Executive Vice-President and Head of Technology and Strategic Transformation at Scope International Pvt Ltd. This group is responsible for providing technology solutions to the bank globally.

At present, a customer can make a complaint through a phone call, e-mail, SMS or by filling up the complaint form. The use of social media Web sites will be the latest in the list.

For instance, during 2010-11, Standard Chartered India received 3,384 complaints ranging from operational errors to incorrect information and authorisation (of cards), according to information available in the bank's Web site.

‘Powerful medium'

“Social media is a powerful medium to ignore. Some of our competitors are also testing this medium, which will also help us to reach the GenY (young people aged between 15 and 25),” she told Business Line.

On why the bank has to take a serious note on Web sites such as Facebook and Twitter, Ms Vaidhyanathan said any adverse comment by a customer can affect the bank's brand badly, as the message could go viral.

The bank will have a dedicated page on Facebook. A customer can register a complaint, say, the debit card is not working. Alternatively, a customer can post a comment or complaint on Twitter.

The system in the bank will immediately pick up the key word Standard Chartered and send an alert to the system that is tracking online complaints for further action. “We can also monitor the key words associated with the bank easily on the Internet,” she said.

The use of social media Web sites need not be confined to complaints alone but can be used effectively for marketing new products or services.

According to Ms Vaidhyanathan, the bank plans to use social medium networking to connect to the Web; put content for online customers to read; use the platform for marketing various products and ‘listen' to customers' feedbacks. “With so much of data with us, we can do a lot of analytics to provide the right type of products to the target customers,” she said.

Tech matters

The technology group headed by Ms Vaidhyanathan is critical for the bank's operations — right from technology lifecycle of business requirement to gathering data and analytics.

With around 5,000 employees, the group supports over 850 applications of the bank. Of these, over 500 applications are internally developed and 25 per cent are critical.

The group along with centres in China, Malaysia and Singapore remotely operates over 10,000 servers, 10,000 network devices, one lakh network ports and over 250 firewalls. It also supports over 95,000 desktops and laptops and every month around 150,000 service desk interactions 24x7, she said.

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