Inauguration of 25000th ATM of State Bank Group

State Bank of India today, inaugurated the 25000th ATM of the State Bank Group, with the opening of the ATM at Girgaon, Mumbai.

SBI also opened a branch – Sundargarh Evening Branch, in Orissa under its Bhubaneswar Circle. This is the 9000th branch of State Bank of India under the RUSU (Rural / Semi-Urban) category.

The inaugural function was held at the Board room of SBI at its Corporate Centre, Mumbai.  Inaugurations were done online using Video conference and the function was broadcast live on the web. Shri. O.P. Bhatt inaugurated the ATM and Branch in the presence of the Managing Director. Shri. R.Sridharan and other Directors of the Central Board. SBI Chairman said he was looking forward to the day when thousands of ATMs will be available to the customers across the country and State Bank alone should have 100,000 ATMS after 5-6 years. He talked about the SBI initiatives for the rural villages where Bank is opening Financial Inclusion Centres to process the business routed through Business Correspondents. 

Smt. Shyamala Gopinath, Deputy Governor of RBI, said that ATM is the most useful device for customer convenience across the world and congratulated the Bank for opening a large number of ATMs and branches . She said that although the BC/BF models have been introduced to cater to unbanked villages, the customers in rural areas still preferred to have the comfort of a Physical branch at their location. Banks need to meet their expectations and open more  branches wherever feasible. Chairman told that out of 13500 plus branches , two thirds are located in Rural and Semi-urban areas. The Chairman and Directors interacted with the customers and staff at the ATM and Branch sites through video conference.  Shri. A.Krishnakumar,  DMD (IT)  gave the welcome address and Shri. Diwakar Gupta , DMD&GE(NBG) proposed the vote of thanks.

From networked ATMs of 250 in 2001, in one decade, State Bank Group has  achieved the astronomical figure of  25,000 ATMs . (SBI 20087 + Associate Banks 4913), a ten fold increase.

The last two years alone State Bank Group recorded a cumulative growth of 13596 ATMs. Market share has increased from less than 24% in 2006 to  34.5%,  in terms of total number of ATMs in the country.

In a challenging economic environment of the previous years,  SBI continued to commit investments in consumer-facing projects especially ATMs that improve the customer experience and convenience. 

SBI  ATM network processes more than 7.5 million transactions in a single day and cash disbursements are nearly Rs 15 billions on a single day.  State Bank has issued more than 90 million debit cards, with a market share of more than 38% in total debit cards. Bank considers ATM to be a mission critical device from the customer’s perspective and plans to deploy 10,000 ATMs every year over  the next 3 years.

State Bank of India is having  the largest network of branches in India , reaching every part of the country.   With the advent of technology SBI has been  promoting customers to use Alternate-Channels like  ATM, Internet Banking, Mobile Banking etc. suiting to customers convenience. It has also reached out to more than 1,17,000 unbanked villages through BC / BF model.   (Business Correspondents / Business facilitators Model). However , since basic Banking services are yet to reach villages and small towns with population below 1,00,000,  State  Bank also continues  to expand its brick and mortar branch network with focus on rural and semi-urban branches.  

Recently, on 6th February 2011,  the 5000th  Rural branch of State Bank of India was inaugurated by the Finance Minister, Shri  Pranab Mukherjee.  SBI is  now pleased to inaugurate a semi-urban branch, Sundergarh Evening Branch in Sundergarh District, Orissa,  This  will be the 9000th branch of State Bank of India under Rural and  Semi-urban category. As of date, two thirds of  State Bank of India branches are in the rural and semi-urban areas. State Bank has the largest percentage of rural and semi-urban branches to total branches, compared to all other nationalized banks and private banks.   Total of Rural and Semi-urban branches is 67%, it is more than 4 times the number of our Metro branches.

The population wise percentage of branches is as under
Rural branches  -             38%    
Semi-urban branches    29%       
Total  RUSU branches   67%
Urban branches              18 %     
Metro branches               15.5%     
Metro plus Urban             33%

From June  2006 to March 2011, more than 3,400 branches have been opened in SBI alone, excluding the merged branches of State Bank of Indore and State Bank of Saurashtra , representing a growth of 37% in the last 4 ½ years.  The State Bank Group has now more than 18181 branches and State Bank of India alone has more than 13500 branches. This financial year 2010-11, SBI has opened 1040 branches including merged branches of State Bank of Indore.

SBI is increasing its coverage of unbanked villages every year , through all possible channels – brick and mortar as well as BC/BF models.  State Bank of India will continue to grow in all areas and in all channels, giving  increased Banking access and convenience to be the Banker to every Indian.