Customers of the largest bank of India, SBI are in for more benefits and hassle free banking. The speed of transactions of State Bank of India has increased by over three folds, all due to the introduction of the new core banking technology.

As compared to only 10 million transactions a day, the bank can now handle around 35 million transactions a day. The dramatic increase in speed of transactions has benefited the huge customer base of the bank associated with it through one or more of its 17,700 branches in the country.

Since the adoption of core banking technology by SBI in 2003, the bank has visualized over 60 % hike in its customer accounts. Current statistics say that today SBI and its subsidiaries together have roughly 260 million accounts. The core banking system connects all branches of SBI to a centralized IT department at Belapur, Navi Mumbai.

Commenting on the success story of the core banking project, SBI Chairperson Mr. O.P.Bhatt said, "The key factor behind the successful completion of the core banking project, given its magnitude and complexity, was SBI's highly systematic and process-oriented culture."

"Oil firms can now get their dues from local dealers faster. Similarly, core banking helps government funds getting transferred directly to beneficiaries through SBI accounts without any third party (state government) interference," said deputy managing director (IT), A Krishnakumar.

The beneficiaries of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) can also have their dues directly credited to their SBI savings account by the government authorities in New Delhi.

This method has resulted in minimization of errors and frauds in the banking system. Since the entire procedure is computerized with no requirement of the earlier used "balancing of book" method so chances of human errors are negated.

The core banking facility, earlier termed as ‘Project SBI First' was installed by Tata Consultancy Services. The entire process was not an easy task. Convincing the rural customer base was very difficult. Also rigorous training of the staff base of 2, 00,000 employees was not a child's play.

Currently the bank faces problems with some of its ATM machines installed in remote areas which do not have adequate power facility. To overcome this issue, SBI plans to install bio- metric ATM machines which do not require power supply for operation and are also cost effective.