Cannot stop lending’

Even if some calls go wrong, State Bank of India will have to give funds for economy to grow

I will not say that everything is hunky dory. It isn’t. Our hope is that as we go forward and the economy starts progressing better, you will see things on the nonperforming assets front getting better.

private equity side, not necessarily from the foreign sources. There are still people in India, who have free cash. This is a very good time to pick up assets.

How much additional pressure does being designated a “toobig-to-fail” bank put on you?

We are a too-big-to-fail bank. We are the government’s bank. I don’t believe that the government’s bank can fail. No matter what anybody says, we don’t work on pressures. We hold a board meeting every week, in which the independent directors are present. We are still 22-23% of the economy.

If we are not lending, the economy will not grow. We will lend because the economy should grow, people get jobs and people can be pulled out of poverty. It is necessary for us to lend. Whether, we have lent it to the correct people, well some calls can go bad. You also need to understand that the environment did not give its support.

What is your view on the government’s plans to incentivise debit and credit card transactions?

That would be lovely. We have been asking for that. Maintenance of cash is very costly. Cash is actually a very big burden. There is a question of counting, storing and circulating. All this gets taken out through electronic transactions. Not only that, corruption comes down.

What is the next stage for mobile wallet SBI Buddy that was launched in August?

SBI Buddy is doing very well. This will be made available on feature phones as well in the next three months. The endstate would be that people will be able to do everything that they do through the branch today through the wallet. A direct e-commerce platform such as Snapdeal or Amazon is something we haven’t thought about. But, we definitely want to have a place, where you should be able to access everything once you get in. The market place will be tied up behind it.

What has been SBI’S experience with the Jan Dhan scheme?

Our zero balance accounts have come down to about 40%. We started with 97%. We need to now work out whether there are duplicate accounts. Duplication could be on account of miscommunication to people that they would get advantages if they had multiple accounts. Many more Jan Dhan accounts will get activated when more direct cash transfer of welfare schemes comes into system.