Lamenting that bankers are paid very poorly in India, especially at public sector banks, SBI chief Arundhati Bhattacharya Thursday said there is an urgent need to provide better remuneration to attract good talent.
Bankers are paid poorly in India as compared to their counterparts elsewhere in the world, she said.
“Let me start with income of banking professionals in India. Here, 70 percent of the banks are in public sector and they are paid very very poorly compared to market,” she said at Delhi Economic Conclave here.
The SBI chief said there is urgent need to improve quality of board members by providing them suitable renumeration so that the overall efficiency improves.
“We are very blessed in that. SBI has invariably had very good quality board. But that may not be true across (other banks’) board. One of the reasons is very low renumeration that is given to the board directors,” she said.
“If you are trying to attract best in the field, they have to be remunerated accordingly. We must insist on people who are coming into the board having sufficient hands on experience in both planning and execution in their respective areas,” she said.
So, this is something that government can easily implemented and should be done, she added.
The comments come about a week after PSU bank employee unions went to a four-day relay strike to press for early revision of wages.
With regard to governance, she said P J Nayak Committee has very clearly laid out certain roadmap as to how governance can be taken forward.
“I believe the government is looking at it. While they do look at it, I believe there are very some low-hanging fruits and those could be easily implemented within a short period of time,” she added.
