| Currently, only three per cent of its individual customers are from the mass affluent segment, and the bank is also unable to provide sophisticated solutions to corporates. |
| The country's largest bank wants to capture the mass affluent segment and the affluent markets, and gain structural capabilities for a complete wholesale banking division, hitherto the domain of private and foreign banks. |
| Top on the bank's business agenda for winning back the market share are ways to lure back the Indian middle class consumers, to "own" rural India, to set-up a profitable wholesale banking division, a global treasury, chart out "smart" global expansion and enter new business areas that had bypassed the bank. |
| The bank is firming up plans to enter the new business areas of financial planning and advisory services, custodial services, merchant acquisition, mobile banking, payments solutions, general insurance, pension funds this year. |
| "As part of offering wealth management services, the bank has created 439 relationship managers in personal banking. We will be recruiting 1000 RMs by October and cull out wealth managers from them," said Deepak Chawla, deputy managing director, corporate strategy and new businesses. For its general insurance venture, the bank is likely to zero in on a foreign partner in the next 2-3 months. |
| A super circle of 762 branches, one from each region, is being planned. These branches will have a greater share of resources at their disposal. "These branches could rise up to become the best virtual bank in the country," said O P Bhatt, chairman of SBI. |
| "In our October conclave last year, we decided to stop losing market share and strive to increase it by 25 basis points every quarter and 1 per cent every year," said Bhatt, chairman, SBI. |
| Since March 2007, SBI has gained 8 basis points in market share. September 2006 was an inflexion point for the bank which had been steadily losing market share to private and foreign counterparts. |
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