C S Setty, new chairman of State Bank of India (SBI), on Thursday said competition with other banks for deposits would not be on interest rates but the focus would be on leveraging the branch network.
The differentiating factor will be quality of service and this is what the bank is going to reinforce.
The lender will try to understand the pain points of customers such as staff shortage. The bank has a feedback mechanism across channels to understand customer satisfaction, Setty told Business Standard.
He took charge as chairman on Wednesday, succeeding Dinesh Khara, who demitted office after completing an extended term.
Setty said “the shift we are seeing is that banks are not aggressively increasing the rate of interest on long-term deposits. They are working on one- to two-year deposits so that the money is not locked up in long-term buckets at higher rates. Everybody is launching special schemes of 300-400 days. Interest rates are not likely to go up significantly”.
SBI had 22,580 branches at the end of June.
