Bhubaneswar, Aug 29: The State Bank of India (SBI) is investing Rs 500 crore during the current financial year on computerisation of its branches strewn across the country, its chairman, AK Purwar said. Talking to reporters after inaugurating a single-window branch of the bank inside the Utkal University premises here, he said SBI has 9,000 branches all over the country besides 5,000 branches of its associate banks. Of the 9,000 branches, about 5,000 have already been computerised and another 1,500 would be covered by March next year, Purwar said. All the 14,000 branches, inclusive of those of associate banks, would be computerised by September ‘04, he said. The chairman said there were 1,200 single window branches where all the needs of the customers could be attended to at single counter. There were 23 such branches in Orissa which had 475 SBI branches.

Purwar said the bank was making efforts to retain 30% to 35% of the maturity value of deposits amounting to R 26,000 crore raised through the Resurgent India Bond floated for NRIs a few years ago.
‘’We are planning road shows from the second week of September in the Middle East, Europe, Asia and Africa targeting the NRIs who had deposited in the scheme,’’ he said. Bureau Report