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| State Bank of India set to scrap 'Super Circle of Excellence' |
| Abhijit Lele / Mumbai Feb 13, 2012, 00:05 IST |
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 It is almost curtains to the 'Super Circle of Excellence', once a high-profile retail initiative at the State Bank of India. The country's largest lender met with limited success to obtain business growth, improve customer service and efficiency from this experimentation spanning four years.
The bank had carved out 703 branches from 14 business circles across the country for the circle. This included 592 branches from metros and 111 from rural and semi-urban areas. This took place during the tenure of O P Bhatt as chairman, on the advice of consultants to scale up the share of retail business.
A top SBI official said the circle was becoming a bank within a bank; it not being a useful concept. The existence of a circle results in adding one tier to decision making.
The circle accounted for 15 per cent of the bank's business, comprising deposits and advances. At the end of September 2011, its deposits went up 13.78 per cent to Rs 9,73,171 core from Rs 8,55,345 crore at the end of September 2010. Its gross advances went up 16.93 per cent (Rs 1,17,388 core) in 12 months to Rs 8,10,612 crore from Rs 6,93,224 crore in September 2010. The bank may discontinue operations of the circle by the end of March. These branches will move back to work under the existing 14 circles spread across the country, said another SBI official.
The branches were selected on a dual basis. One subset comprised of those in metro and large urban centres. The other had branches selected on the basis of one per region, aiming to transfer the best practices from high-performing ones to others across the country.
The anchor branches did, however, get good business. But, these failed to spread the best practices to others under there wings, the official added.
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