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State Bank of India (SBI) is planning to recruit over 15,000 people in 2024-25, increasing the strength of those in the field for marketing.
The recruits will be also for deployment in the bank’s operations subsidiary and expanding the branch network.
The operations subsidiary — State Bank Operations Support Services — became functional last year.
The country’s largest lender is also planning to open 300 branches this financial year, as against 139 opened in 2023-24.
SBI chairman Dinesh Khara said the bank was open to hiring, depending on requirements.
The bank itself is in the process of taking on 11,000-12,000 probationary officers across categories this financial year.
According to Khara, 85 per cent of the recruits in the category of officers and associate levels would be engineers, though the bank had no bias in their favour.
These recruits will first be made conversant with banking operations.
After that they will be channelled into various other roles.
Some of them will also be deployed in the information technology segment, Khara said in a media interaction after the results for 2023-24.
Responding to a query on branch rationalisation, Khara said: “There is no question of rationalisation.
"For a country like India and the kind of growth we see, there is ample opportunity.
"We have to identify pockets where we need to expand physically.”
SBI had 22,542 branches at the end of March 2023.
The operations support subsidiary has hired 8,000 persons, mainly involved in semi-urban branches.
The bank plans to have manpower for urban and metropolitan locations as well, for which approval is in place.
The structure is being put in place to reach out to customers on their doorstep, Khara added.
An official with the subsidiary said the net annual intake was over 3,000.
Those engaged by a subsidiary are deployed in due diligence, marketing, and documentation.
SBI group officials said those working with the subsidiary were also roped in for back-office work, marketing, and recovery.
The subsidiary has shown good results in follow-ups and recoveries.
This year’s plan is to spread its coverage to urban and metropolitan centres.
Most of those employees engaged by the subsidiary are local residents, helping to reach customers and save expenditure on commuting.
Staff expenses for those working directly with the bank are higher due to various perks and allowances.
However, this expenditure is much less for those working with the subsidiary, giving SBI group an advantage especially in scouting and servicing retail business, officials added.
