State Bank of India is set to open dedicated SME branches in an effort to increase its focus on SME portfolio. Chairman of the bank Arundhati Bhattacharya said the bank had earlier set up sourcing teams and branches for SMEs, and sanction was done after being appraised by the SME city credit cell, but it has now found that there is a lack of ownership in such a business model. “So, we are now getting dedicated SME branches that will only do SME advances,” she added. The bank has already done pilot projects in Mumbai and Delhi and is expected to do such projects in other parts of the country. Bhattacharya said under the new model, the people who source the loans will not only appraise them, but will also be responsible for post sanction monitoring, thereby taking end-to-end responsibility. The quality control of the loan given to the SMEs will be done by the SME credit cell. The bank has also formed an off-site inspection team, which will do an online audit of the sanctions on an almost realtime basis.
