Mr. Om Prakash Bhatt
Chairman, SBI Bank

 

Born on 7th March 1951, Mr. Om Prakash Bhatt studied science at the undergraduate level as a National Science Talent Search Scholar. After graduating, he did his Masters in English.

Mr. Bhatt began his banking career soon after his 21st birthday as a Probationary Officer with State Bank of India, an institution which he has continued to serve for the last 34 years, covering a whole variety of assignments covering both domestic and international banking. He was very closely involved with State Bank of India's ambitious computerization project and spent 6 years coordinating the team's efforts from the Bank's Corporate Centre at Mumbai. From there he went to Jaipur as head of a Region, which assignment was followed by a year's stint as Personal Secretary to the Chairman of State Bank Group.

In September 1997, Mr. Bhatt was posted as Bank's Representative at Washington D.C. where his duties included maintaining rapport with FRB, FDIC, US Exim, Indian Embassy, American banks, World Bank, IMF. He was also responsible for arranging money market lines for our foreign offices, arrangement of syndicated/ project finance loans etc.

After his return from Washington, Mr. Bhatt held a string of critical assignments as he quickly got promoted from General Manager to Chief General Manager and then to Deputy Managing Director. He was General Manager in charge of Development and Personal Banking at the Bank's Lucknow Head Office, Chief General Manager of the Bank's North East Circle, and then Managing Director of State Bank of Travancore, a banking subsidiary of State Bank of India.

In view of his successful handling of these critical assignments, Government of India selected Mr. Bhatt for appointment as Managing Director of State Bank of India where he was given charge of the Bank's National Banking Group, which handles the entire retail portfolio of the Bank. Barely three months later Government elevated Mr. Bhatt to the position of Chairman of State Bank of India, a position that he occupied on 1.7.2006.

As Chairman, Mr. Bhatt is not only the Chief Executive of India's largest commercial bank, he is also the Head of the entire State Bank Group which consists of 8 domestic and 5 international banking subsidiaries, besides 10 non-banking subsidiaries, and 2 Joint Ventures.

Mr. Om Prakash Bhatt has taken over the affairs of the State Bank of India at its most critical and challenging time. The process of liberalization and globalisation of the Indian economy has begun to bear fruit, bringing with it both opportunities and threats. The private sector has begun to flourish in the Indian banking industry, providing unprecedented competition to public sector banks like State Bank. With improvement in the economy, customer expectations have gone up. Globalisation has brought with it critical issues of risk management and capital adequacy. On the other hand, with the economy growing like never before, and with State Bank of India having the largest network of branches in the country and a strong IT platform already in place, Mr. Bhatt

feels that the Bank is at the threshold of its "golden period". With his deep knowledge of the market, both domestic and international, his close grasp of IT related issues, his hands-on approach to execution, and his proven ability to plan and strategise, Mr. Bhatt has already begun the process of consolidating the Bank's strengths, innovating new products to suit today's market, and taking effective steps to ensure that technology, human resources and business processes are harnessed towards expansion and deeper penetration of the market, both domestic and foreign.