Thirty per cent of the capital was contributed by the then Government of Travancore and the remaining by 4,000 shareholders. The bank became a Scheduled Commercial Bank in 1946 and, in 1960, became a subsidiary of the State Bank of India and assumed its present name.

GROWING IN SIZE

It grew in size between 1959-65 through a series of takeovers, amalgamations and mergers. SBT is part of the State Bank Group.

SBT has its corporate office in Thiruvananthapuram and has five zonal offices, four of which are in the State of Kerala and one at Chennai, and two Regional Offices, one each in Mumbai and another in New Delhi.

In addition, there are spun-off Regional Offices at Thrissur, Kannur, Palakkad, Nagercoil, Alappuzha, Pathanamthitta, Kollam, Mavelikara, Bangalore, and Coimbatore.

The Corporate Data Centre (CDC) of the Bank is at Belapur, Navi Mumbai, along with all banks of the State Bank group. A Disaster Recovery Centre, a standby unit of CDC Belapur, is functioning at Chennai.

INTEGRATED TREASURY

The bank has a full-fledged integrated treasury department functioning in Mumbai. The Payment and Settlement Group at Mumbai manages Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) and National Electronic Funds Transfer (NEFT) - the funds transfer initiatives of Reserve Bank of India - that are straight-through process (STP)-enabled at all the branches of the bank.

A Disaster Recovery Centre for payments and settlement is functioning at the Head Office in Thiruvananthapuram.

As at the end of September 2011, SBT has a network of 797 branches. SBT has its presence in all metros, and 172 branches are situated outside Kerala.

SBT is a tech-savvy bank and serves its customers with modern technologies. All branches of the bank are fully computerised and networked under Core Banking Solutions with Internet Banking and Mobile Banking facilities.

ATM NETWORK

The bank has installed 883 ATMs for improving customer convenience. These ATMs are part of the 25,000-plus ATM network of the State Bank Group, the largest ATM network in India. Listen Online Music

International ATM-cum-debit Cards are available to customers to make withdrawals throughout the world. Bank provides remittance facility from the US and the UK through Xpress Remit Product.

The unique remittance product “Money Trans” provides speedy remittance facility from the West Asia to the domestic client having account with any bank.

Online share trading facility ‘eZ-Trade' gives 3-in-1 advantage with savings, demat and trading facilities. The bank also provides other financial products such as life insurance (in tie-up with SBI Life), mutual fund investments (in tie-up with five mutual funds) and general and accident insurance (in tie-up with United India Insurance Co Ltd).

FINANCIAL SUPERMARKET

Thus, the bank has become a financial supermarket offering full spectrum of products under one roof.

Many new initiatives under business process re-engineering have been rolled out in the bank, which have brought in revolutionary changes in the day-to-day functioning of the branches.

The bank has excelled in the areas of rural housing, education loan to needy students, finance to self-help groups and retail banking. The bank has tailor-made products to service the customers in all segments.

It has a representative office in Dubai and manages two exchange houses – City Exchange LLC, Dubai and Global Money Exchange Company, Oman.

The bank was conferred the special award for excellence in MSE lending for the year 2009-10 by the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises. This is the fifth time in last seven years the bank has secured such award.

MARKET SHARE

The Bank has on its rolls 11,864 members of staff, comprising 4,403 officers, 5,270 clerical and cash department staff and 2,191 subordinate staff, inclusive of 345 part-time sweepers. The business per employee is Rs 9.54 crore and profit per employee at Rs 9 lakh.

As at the end of 29th July 2011, the bank has a market share of 1.12 per cent in deposits and 1.18 per cent in advances of the all-India ASCB level.

The bank has a very large clientele of non-resident Indians. A 20 per cent share of deposits of the bank is contributed by NRI segment. The bank has correspondent banking arrangements with 18 banks worldwide.

It offers a wide spectrum of services to its NRI customers. In order to facilitate smooth transfer of funds from the Gulf, the Bank has entered into rupee drawing arrangements with 28 exchange Houses and one bank in the West Asia.