Volume 14, Number 2 Article by Ashok Thampy , Vivek Moorthy June, 2002
Banking on SBI: Interview with Dipankar Basu :
Dipankar Basu joined the ?big daddy? of banking, State Bank of India (SBI) in 1956 and spent his entire professional career with SBI, serving as Chairman of the bank between 1993 and 1995. Basu spoke to Ashok Thampy and Vivek Moorthy of IIMB on ?how the animal has changed its characteristics?, tracing the development of SBI from its pre-Independence avatar as the Imperial Bank of India, its period of lone splendour from 1955 till the other banks were nationalised in 1969, and the way it has risen to the challenges of the opening of the economy in the last decade. In the first 10-15 years, SBI worked as an instrument for government policy ? rural and agricultural credit, opening of branches in un-serviced areas, taking banking to the small-scale industries and financing small entrepreneurs. Later on came the social programmes like IRDP and the Prime Minister?s Rozgar Yojana, the politically designed instruments. While the bank did reduce the ?spatial gap? in banking it lagged behind, Basu agrees, in asset creation and providing ?other services? to customers. However, in the last 10 years, SBI has taken on the new entrants and become a strong player in the market, playing by the market-driven rules of the game. Basu claims that SBI has always anticipated the move towards ?universal banking?, and he spearheaded the bank?s entry into the investment banking and mutual fund businesses ? SBI Capital Markets and SBI Mutual Fund.
A member of the government?s Disinvestment Commission between 1996 and 1999, Basu spoke about the privatisation process and the initiatives taken by the government, and other trends in banking such as the increasing use of technology in retail banking and the convergence in the financial sector.
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