Laugh all the way to the bank, SBI celebrates its platinum jubilee
At 5,359 metres above sea level, you may get short of breath, but never short of ready cash. At Khardung La, midway between Leh and Nubra Valley, on one of the world’s highest motorable roads, you get piping hot Maggi noodles, Bisleri bottles — and an ATM of State Bank of India (SBI) dispensing crisp 500s.
There’s a floating ATM on the Dal Lake in Srinagar, so are there many on the opposite side of the country, in the backwaters of Kerala. In fact, nearly 64,000 of them spread across the length and breadth of the nation — and abroad, signalling the muscle and heft of India’s biggest bank and one of the world’s largest — State Bank of India, which celebrates its Platinum Jubilee today.
“To reiterate from our press release on 1st July 1955, our policy, as always, will be guided by the ideal – to further the interests of our customers and those of the entire nation, now and in the years to come,” said SBI chairman Challa Sreenivasulu Setty.
In fact, while the entity called State Bank of India per se came into being via government order on 1st July 1955, its antecedents can be traced back to more than 200 years ago — way back to 1806, when the Bank of Calcutta was founded. Bank of Calcutta was later merged with the two other presidency banks of British India — Bank of Bombay and Bank of Chennai, to form the biggest bank under the Raj, called the Imperial Bank of India, which in turn became SBI 70 years ago.
Today, it is the kind of financial behemoth that gives a complex to superlatives. Not only is it the biggest bank in the country by most parameters — assets, balance sheet (66 lakh crore rupees), branches (nearly 23,000), customers (52 crore), employees (2.3 lakh), home loans (8.3 lakh crore). SBI is also global, with 244 branches in 55 countries.
In a lot of ways, the Bank has been a poster boy for the surge of the India success story — since it came into existence as SBI on July 1st, 1955 till now, India’s GDP grew by 3,000, while SBI’s deposits grew 25,000 times. Today, its income stands at more than ₹5 lakh crore, and profit, at nearly ₹71,000 crore.
But perhaps its biggest success has been twofold — one, the way the elephantine public sector entity stayed competitive even while zealous private banks entered the scene. And secondly and perhaps more crucially, its successful digital pivot, which kept the legacy bank nimble-footed in changing times, and relevant to a new generation of customers. The number of customers using its digital interfaces, including the runaway hit YONO app are just short of 14 crore (YONO, short for ‘You Only Live Once’ has 8.77 crore registered users).
In fact, more than 98% of the bank’s transactions are today done digitally. The bank is also actively deploying Generative AI, Big Data, predictive analytics, and Large Language Models (LLM) to personalise customer experiences.
“SBI is building the foundation for the future of banking — one that is digital at its core,” added Setty. “For 70 years, we have been trusted partners in the nation’s progress. Today, we are investing deeply in our people, technology, and infrastructure to serve a billion aspirations with greater speed, empathy, and responsibility. Our vision is not just to lead in scale, but to lead with purpose, unlocking long-term value for every stakeholder.”
The bank is celebrating its Platinum Jubilee with the hashtag #SaatDashakDeshKeSaath (70 Years by the Nation’s Side) and amongst the many announcements include a target of turning 40 lakh Indian homes into solar-powered in two years, as well as establishing a new Trade Finance Operations Centre in Kolkata that will be digitised and centralised.
The bank still labours over vestiges of the License Raj era, though, ranging from a bloated workforce, bureaucratic style of functioning and decision-making, and at many stages in the recent past, a largish exposure to bad loans (NPAs). But that wouldn’t dull the sweetness of its birthday cake this year — after all, you only celebrate your platinum jubilee once. Right?
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