The Thiruvananthapuram-headquartered State Bank of Travancore (SBT) has been awarded the Special Award amongst the associate banks of the State Bankof India (SBI) under the National Award for Excellence in lending to Micro and Small Enterprises (MSE).
A senior SBT official said here that the award instituted by the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, is in recognition of the creditable performance of SBT in lending to the MSE sector during the year 2007-08. The award was presented by Mahabir Prasad, Minister for MSMEs, at the national awards function held in New Delhi. M Ramaswamy, Managing Director, SBT, received the award on behalf of the bank.
The SBT had won the award last year too. The official pointed out that this is the fourth time in the last five years that SBT has been chosen for the award. The bank recorded a growth of Rs 905 crore in lending to the small and medium enterprises during 2007-08, touching a level of Rs.4338 crore.
The five SME branches of SBT in Kerala, at Thiruvananthapuram, Kottayam, Ernakulam, Alappuzha and Thrissur, offers a variety of tailor-made schemes to suit the requirements of various segments of the SME sector.
In another step forward in its global operations, SBT has also opened its representative office in Dubai. This is SBT’s first overseas office and would aim at linking the bank to its potential customers across the globe.
According to M Ramaswamy, Managing Director, SBT, “the new representative office, at Bur Dubai, will act as an interface between the bank’s customers in the Middle East and its branches in India”.
He added that “besides promoting trade and investment in India from the business community based in the Middle East, the representative office will provide personalised services to the NRIs in the UAE for all their banking requirements from their home country. Customer grievances will also be attended to speedily”.