People's safety, strong book are priorities for new SBI chief Dinesh Kumar Khara

The priorities for the new State Bank of India Chairman would be the safety of the employees and customers along with the strong asset quality so that bank is 'position to come to the rescue' of businesses if need be.

"First and foremost priority for me is the safety of our employees who are serving, the safety of customers and the quality of the book," Dinesh Kumar Khara, said in his inaugural presser.

He also said that the bank would be ready to rescue any corporate "who would have gone into distress due to the current Covid situation" and the rescue would happen "within the framework laid by the Reserve Bank".

On the part of bailing out companies by SBI, he put the onus of the decision on the board of the bank. "SBI being a board-driven bank, all such matters which are of such kind of nature are deliberated on length are we get guided by the decisions of the board," he replied to a question by DH.

In the past three years, the country's largest lender State Bank of India (SBI) had tried bailing out two big corporates -- YES Bank and Jet Airways. "Annual hiring would continue as it was in the past. So we won't be letting down our guards as far as hiring is concerned," he said.

On capital raising plans, Khara stated that SBI's capital adequacy position comfortable given the credit growth being seen. "Will try to raise capital when there is a need. The capital raising will depend on the movement of credit growth. At present, the bank is adequately capitalised and has raised tier-II capital. Will reach out for capital raising as and when we see building up of asset" he said.

About SBI's response to loan structuring both retail and corporate, Khara mentioned that both corporate and retail loan restructuring requests are within manageable limits.

"As far as our legacy bad loans are concerned we have already provided for them. As of now, we do not have visibility of the cases that will undergo restructuring under Covid restructuring. Overall, we are not envisaging this as a concern point," he said.

Khara took charge as the new Chairman of State Bank of India (SBI), with effect from October 7, 2020, for a three-year term. Prior to his new role, Khara was serving the bank as Managing Director, Global Banking & Subsidiaries.

He succeeds Rajnish Kumar, who demitted office on October 6, 2020. Khara has over three and a half decades of rich and experience in various facets of banking such as Retail, Corporate Credit, and International Banking.

As Managing Director, Khara was instrumental in successfully executing the merger of SBI with its five Associate Banks and Bhartiya Mahila Bank that made the bank join the league of top 50 banks globally.