THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: What originally began as a local commercial bank to meet the requirements of Alappuzha port with a paid up capital of Rs 5 lakh in 1926 will on April 1 be subsumed into one of the world’s top 50 banks with an asset base of Rs 32 trillion. Along with a change of name from SBT to SBI, major banking products too will change to SBI’s offerings. However, it is still not clear whether the new products would be on sale from April 1. Sources said proper instructions have still not been given down the line regarding the hawking of the new banking products from the day of merger.
For the transition to be complete, the transfer of customer data from SBT’s server to SBI’s will have to be completed. Data merger, sources said, will be complete only by the third week of April. Otherwise, the merger will not create any significant change. Since SBT employs the same core banking solutions as SBI, former SBT officials can begin their duties holding their new SBI identity without much hassle. Even deposits and loans of SBT customers will continue to operate on SBT terms.
“It is only at the date of renewal or reset that SBI rates would kick in,” a top SBI official said. SBI management has also assured that SBT branches would not be shut down. “If at all branches would be touched, it would only be for relocation,” the SBI official said. During the years of expansion, both SBT and SBI had competitively opened branches. As a consequence, in highly populated areas, SBI and SBT branches exist side by side. However, SBT employees continue to be wary. “They had said that no jobs would be cut but now they have come up with a VRS scheme,” said K.S. Krishna of SBT Employees Union. It is rumored there could be some trimming at the top. At the moment, there are 11 general managers in the state for both SBI and SBT. This will be brought down to three.
