What was formerly a four-six business hours - working day has now been extended to 10-11 hours and beginning July-August, three branches of SBI - Pune Main, East Street and Erandwane have been operational from 8.30 a.m. to 7.30 p.m. While V Braganza, Assistant General Manager, SBI, Pune District, avers that customer convenience is of prime importance, he admits to the increasing competition from private sector and foreign banks in the city.

A N Gohad, Administrative officer at SBI's Pune Main Branch said that the same 275 staff members have been rotated in three shifts - 8.30 a.m. to 3.30 p.m., 1.30 a.m. to 8.30 p.m. and 10.30 a.m. to 5.30 p.m. from the last week of July to cope up with the banking requirements.

Braganza explained that there was no need for recruitment of additional staff. In fact, with the computerisation of its 21 local branches, the management has redeployed the staff by placing them in various shifts. We experimented with our three branches at East Street, Pune Main and Erandwane and the response from customers has been encouraging. With the extension of business hours, not only has the rush at the counters abated but the banking staff can also make itself available to the customer throughout the day, Braganza said.

Customers have different expectations and while our main branch deals with a lot of commercial ones, the branches at Erandwane and East Street have a mix of both. Individuals residing in the nearby locality can now walk in at any time during the day, says Braganza adding that the SBI's local branches would provide ATM service within three months while experiments are underway to interlink the branches at Golibar Maidan and East Street.

The competition is fierce from foreign banks like ABN-AMRO, Standard Chartered, Citi-Bank and even cooperatives like Vidya-Sahkari, Suvarna-Sahkari whose various schemes have provided immense customer satisfaction, admit representatives of various nationalised banks.

While other public sector banks like Central Bank of India and Bank of India have yet to move into top gear, Bank of Maharashtra is attempting to turn a new leaf with a few of its branches having extended its business hours. The bank has started extended business hours at nine branches, installed seven ATMs and has 184 computerised branches. Apart from starting telebanking and query terminal at its Bajirao Road branch, the bank has also started Customer Grievances Cell.