Indian Banks

State bank of India(SBI) recruitment of  Specialist Officers in Associate Banks of State Bank of India. State Bank Group wishes to recruit Specialist Officers in its Associate Banks for the posts in various fields.

Post Name: Specialist Officers

Application Fee: Rs.50/- only postal charge for SC/ST/PH/XS candidates For all others Rs.500/-

How To Apply: Apply On-line from 24/08/2010 to 25/09/2010. The computer generated application along with necessary photocopies and application fees & / postage fee receipt should reach on or before 30/09/2010 by ordinary post.

For Online Application Click on the following SBI link: http://registration.sifyitest.com/sbisplofficer/index.php

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SBI General Insurance today launched its operation in a limited geographical area. It has received regulatory approval for two products in the fire and property segment.

“We have got approval for two products in the property segment. We plan to roll out pan-India operation in the next four-five months. We will start from Mumbai as of now,” said RR Belle, managing director and chief executive officer, SBI General Insurance.

At present, SBI General is in the process of setting up its comprehensive IT infrastructure and is expected to commence full scale operations later during the year.

SBI General is a joint venture between SBI and Insurance Australia Group IAG with 74 per cent and 26 per cent share in the capital structure. SBI has invested Rs 111 crore for its 74 per cent equity, while IAG has pumped in about Rs 542.10 crore (including about Rs 500 crore premium) for its 26 per cent stake. It got the final (R3) regulatory approval in December 2009.

Entering into the market now will help SBI get corporate clients, as most of the policies get renewed in April. In addition, it will get advantage of SBI’s 14,000 branches and a huge client base, mostly in retail and small & medium enterprises segments.

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State Bank of India (SBI), the largest public sector bank of the country, plans to invest Rs 500 crore-Rs 1,000 crore in the general insurance business in synergy with Insurance Australia Group. The Chairman of the bank, O P Bhatt, said that SBI would keep the 74 per cent stake while 24 per cent would be kept with the private partner. The entity would be named as the SBI General Insurance.

“We will make a soft launch with some products later this month and a complete rollout will be done in the next year,” he said. He added that since they need complete infrastructure for launch the entire basket of products, they would wait for the complete network to come in place before the final launch.

In the beginning they can take the help of agents to deal with the retail consumers in the market.

He apprised the bank has sufficient liquidity and capital adequacy ratio of 14 per cent. He added there was no dearth of funds with the bank so there is no plan to raise any capital from the market in the current financial year.

He said the business of bank was not effected by the slowdown in the economy. The recoveries were effected only from export oriented small and medium enterprises.

Bhatt said the bank presently offers mobile banking to over 200,000 customers and was in a process to strengthen its software to extend mobile banking to a larger number of customers.

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State-owned bank State Bank of India (SBI) plans to reach 1,000 branches in the Chandigarh circle next financial year.

Talking to Business Standard on the sidelines of the conference held at PHDCCI, SBI Chief General Manger (Chandigarh Circle) S K Sehgal said the bank, which has around 875 branches in the region, plans to add another 100 branches in the next fiscal.

The Chandigarh Circle comprises of Union Territory Chandigarh and states including Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir.

Sehegal added keeping in mind the additional workforce required due to expansion plans, SBI is looking to hire 2,500 additional people in next fiscal year.

The additional workforce would not only take care of the requirement of bank for new branches but also substitute for the retirees.

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Bank to decide on special home loan scheme by month-end.

State Bank of India Chairman OP Bhatt today said the country’s largest lender would prefer to raise capital through a rights issue of equity shares, rather than dilution of the government holding, to fund growth.

“I want the government to continue to be the major stake holder in SBI … If there is an opportunity to raise capital quickly and efficiently, we will like to do that (rights issue) … It gives us a lot of flexibility in future,’ he told reporters on the sidelines of a seminar on capitalism organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

The Union government had introduced a bill to dilute its minimum permissible equity in the bank from the present 55 per cent to 51 per cent, among other changes in the SBI Act. The present equity of the government is about 59 per cent.

On a global offering, Bhatt said the bill provides room to raise funds through American Depository Receipts. “Our Global Depository Receipts are already listed. The provision will also give us an option to tap the American market. However, there are no plans for using this route.”

Bhatt indicated the bank was unlikely to go for a rights issue soon, as it had enough capital and a good liquidity position. “The bank has a five-year perspective. We do not need capital immediately, because our capital adequacy ratio is now around 14 per cent,” he said.

On the merger of State Bank of Indore with the parent, he said the Reserve Bank of India had given its in-principle nod for the merger between the two entities. The proposal needed to be cleared by the government and the boards of both banks.

Referring to a new scheme floated to settle dues from small and medium size enterprises, he said the bank offer would be a one-time settlement for bad loans from these units, to provide relief to small firms hit by the global financial crisis.

On the extension of SBI’s special home loan scheme, Bhatt said they would decide by end-March. Under the scheme, the bank offers an eight per cent fixed rate for home loans for a fixed period. SBI has got good response to the scheme, under which it disburses around Rs 2,500 crore a month, he said.

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State Bank of India (SBI), the country’s largest lender, is expecting a mark-to-market (MTM) loss of Rs 500-700 crore during the current quarter due to rising bond yields, said Chairman O P Bhatt.

MTM is the writing down of securities to reflect current market value.

Yields on government bond have hardened by about 29 bps since January. On Friday, the benchmark 10-year government bond closed at a 17-month high of 7.97 per cent. There are expectations among market players that bond yields could cross the 8 per cent mark over the next few weeks.

Banks have to arrive at the market value of their bond portfolio based on the yield on the last day of the quarter. Banks, especially public sector players, have been further affected by rising yields as they have run out of headroom in putting bonds in the held-to-maturity category that does not require MTM accounting. With a record borrowing of Rs 451,000 crore this year, and low credit demand, banks had little option but to buy government securities.

SBI had reported net profit of Rs 2,479 crore in the third quarter of 2009-10, 0.03 per cent growth as compared with the same period in the previous year, as it had to book a Rs 246 crore MTM loss on the bond portfolio as compared with a write-back of Rs 342 crore in the corresponding period last year.

The flat growth in profit was partly due to investing a portion of the excess liquidity — estimated at Rs 75,000 crore — into instruments to shore up its statutory liquidity ratio. This exposure resulted in an additional MTM loss of Rs 45 crore during the quarter.

Unlike other banks, SBI’s problems are compounded by the government issuing bonds worth Rs 10,000 crore as its share of subscription to the rights issue.

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Raising target from 11,000 to 25,000 will take care of retirements and positions at new branches.

The State Bank of India (SBI), the country’s largest lender, plans to scale up intake of clerical staff to 25,000 from initial estimate of 11,000 to take care of larges scale retirements and positions at new branches.

At present recruitment process is underway and bank is seeking legal opinion on increasing intake (from 11,000 to 25,000 ) in this recruitment phase itself, a senior SBI official said.

This increase will help save time and cost in the sense that bank would not be required to start fresh recruitment process next year. The estimated cost for the clerical recruitment in 2010 is pegged at Rs 50crore, official said.

While written examination is though (which saw 27lakh people appearing for tests), the interviews would be held over the next 2-3 months. The induction is expected to be two stage process ending before March 2011.

Bank has already recruited about 33,000 persons in clerical cadre since 2007. With 25,000 extra hands, the total intake would cross 50,000 by end of March 2011.

It has also taken 6,000 clerical hands on board at its associate banks. “Our assessment of manpower needs factors in the needs of banking entities within group. With consolidation underway, bank would group approach is becoming more relevant,” said another official.

SBI plans to nearly treble its branch network to 50,000 by the end of the current decade from 17,075.

At present, SBI has 12,207 domestic and 141 overseas branches while the remaining belong to its six associate banks.

The bank has 250 million accounts. It plans to merge the associate banks with itself over the next few years.

This year alone, SBI has opened 975 branches and it intends to add another 1,000 branches during 2010-11. At the start of the first decade, SBI had around 9,100 branches.

The Indian bank’s branch expansion plan is a reversal of its strategy at the start of the decade, when like most banks, SBI too was focusing on its existing network and generating more business from them.

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The country’s largest lender, State Bank of India (SBI), is looking to acquire a significant stake in Tata Motors Finance (TMFL), the vehicle financing arm of Tata Motors, the largest automobile company in the country.

“Our investment committee would like the bank to take part in the deal and invest some amount (in Tata Motors Finance),” said SBI Chairman OP Bhatt at the sidelines of a seminar without deliberating on the size of the deal.

The bank, however, will not be the majority shareholder. “It will not be small, it will be significant, but not a majority stake,” Bhatt said.

In 2008, SBI had acquired a 91 per cent stake in Global Trade Finance (GTFL), a factoring services company. The promoters of GTFL were Export-Import Bank of India, International Finance Corporation, Washington, and Malta-based FIM Bank.

The deal would enable SBI to gain presence in the commercial vehicle segment, Bhatt said. TMFL, on the other hand, will have access to cheaper money.

“We see a lot of synergy for us. Synergy in terms of business… the commercial vehicle segment, the bus and trucks businesses,” he said. After receiving clearance from its board, the bank will approach the Reserve Bank of India for approval.

The lender, which controls around 15 per cent of the auto loan market, has bcome aggressive in the segment in the last few years. In 2009, in order to make auto loans more attractive, SBI launched a scheme at an interest rate of 8 per cent for the first year. As on December 31, the bank’s auto loan disbursements grew by 46.35 per cent on year to Rs 13,012 crore. TMFL, though experiencing improvement in margins, has witnessed its market share decline, which the company attributed to “active competition from domestic banks.” During the first nine months of the current financial year, TMFL disbursed loans worth Rs 4,446 crore, which is lower by 18 per cent over the same period of the previous year.

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