Sbi To Seek Alliance For Communications Grid
The State Bank of India (SBI) will seek a strategic alliance _ either with a domestic or foreign party _ for implementation of its dedicated communications network project. "The project is still in a nascent stage and we are in the process of drawing up a feasibility report. We will then scout for a party with whom we can tie up for implementing the project," said K Sesha Shayi, chief general manager, systems and technology, SBI.
State Bank will invest in VSAT, lease lines and radio links that will integrate and help in moving voice and data generated at its computerised branches. As on March 1998, the bank had fully computerised 1,211 branches, of which 1009 were in the urban and metropolitan areas.
Earlier, M S Verma, chairman of the bank, had said that SBI was looking for strategic alliances wherever possible and had identified information technology as one such area. "We do not have to develop the entire technology needed by the bank in-house. We could seek tie-ups with technology vendors, who would help us to so much faster," he had said.
As a beginning, the bank plans to tie up with Wipro Infotech, a leading information technology firm, for implementing a data warehousing project.
The main objective of this project would be to facilitate the creation of decision-making supports and management information systems (MIS), through collation of data of its computerised branches at the corporate level.
The bank also plans to go in for interconnectivity of its 100 personal service branches _ an area of focus for the 1998-99 financial year _ and install ATMs at all these branches. SBI had embarked on interconnectivity of its branches last year under which four of its branches were connected to remote centralised databases. The bank has 23 ATMs spread over 14 centres as of date. The bank has set aside Rs 500 crore for technology upgradation, of which the allocation for the current year was Rs 100 crore. Verma had also stated that SBI proposed to computerise all its urban and semi-urban branches, totalling about 2,800, and accounting for 70 per cent of bank's business.