The largest lender of the country, State Bank of India seems to be eager at opening exclusive branches catering to specific customer segments. It has been only two weeks since the bank opened a special branch for ultra HNI clients. It has now opened a special branch only for the corporate salary account holders at the DLF Cyber Centre at Gachibowli, Hyderabad.

The branch is targetted towards the IT and engineering companies which are affluent near Gachibowli. The branch would be offering all banking facilities like deposit, loan, insurance, mutual funds and Internet banking.

According to Shiva Kumar, chief general manager of SBI (Hyderabad circle), around 3000 to 4000 accounts are expected in the branch by the end of this financial year.

"As the DLF premises gets occupied to its 16,000-person capacity, the branch will have the first mover advantage in gaining their accounts. We will also consider extending our working hours to suit the 24-hour schedules of the IT industry," he said.

The corporate salary account pacakge of the bank comes in four flavors offering anywhere banking, zero minimum balance, free Internet banking as well as concessions on interest and processing fee on loans, and on remittance and maintenance charges on demat and eZ trade accounts.

The branch currently has workforce of seven and would be increased on a need basis, said Kumar.

A Finmart lounge is present in the branch which would allwo customers to discuss products other than the conventional banking transactions.

Apart from these, special services targetted mainly to the target audience would be offered like e-tax, demat and online trading, and e-Invest for ASBA (Application Supported by Blocked Amounts) facility.