Dinesh Kumar Khara on Tuesday bid adieu to the bank he had led for four years.
Khara has been serving as the Chairman of State Bank of India since October 2020, a tenure during which the bank's profitability and market sentiment saw rapid improvement even in an uncertain macroeconomic environment.
According to people present there, the bank's senior management organised a farewell function in honour of Khara. All the four managing directors and Khara himself delivered speeches at the function which went on till late evening.
The outgoing chairman spoke about how India's largest bank handled itself during the Covid-19 pandemic. He praised the bank's employees for not taking a single day off during the pandemic and working tirelessly to keep operations stable even amid the nationwide lockdown.
Khara also pointed out that the bank's net profit during the last four years has been more than the cumulative profit earned in the last 60 years. According to the people quoted above, during his speech, the outgoing chairman also urged the bank's employees to continue the good work done over the years.
In the last four years, SBI has earned a profit of Rs 1.63 lakh crore after tax. Before Khara's tenure, the bank's annual profit in FY20 was Rs 14,448 crore. Compare this with the first quarter of FY25, in which SBI earned a net profit of Rs 17,037 crore.
CS Shetty, who was till now the managing director in charge of international banking, global markets and technology, will take over as SBI's new chairman for three years from Wednesday. Shetty, also a career state banker, also spoke during Khara's farewell function, where he congratulated his senior and promised to continue working at the bank, people present there said.
Shetty, who as a teenager made small loans for his father, will have to not only maintain SBI's profitability momentum but also find ways to improve it. He is taking control of India's largest lender at a time when technology-related issues are cropping up across the industry.
Though Khara has always said that SBI has spent a lot of resources to improve its IT infrastructure, this claim will be tested in the coming years. Also, SBI will need to maintain its leadership in key areas such as housing finance, clean unsecured book and deposit mobilisation.