South Indian Bank

South Indian Bank Ltd (SIB)

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Type	Private BSE & NSE
Industry	Banking Financial Services Insurance Capital markets
Founded	1929
Headquarters	Thrissur City, Kerala, India
Key people	Sri. V.G. Mathew, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer
Products	Loans, savings, investment vehicles, insurance etc.
Revenue	₹ 26.4270 billion
Net income	₹ 2.3376 billion
Website	www.southindianbank.com

South Indian Bank Limited (SIB) (BSE: 532218, NSE: SOUTHBANK) is a private sector bank headquartered at Thrissur City in Kerala, India. South Indian Bank has 831 branches, 4 service branches,33 ext.counters and 20 regional offices spread across more than 26 states and 3 union territories in India. It has set up 1269 ATMs and 4 Bulk Note Acceptor/Cash Deposit Machines all over India.

Milestones

• First among the private sector banks in Kerala to become a scheduled bank in 1946.
• First bank in the private sector in India to open a Currency Chest in April 1992.
• First private sector bank to open a NRI branch in November 1992.
• First bank in the private sector to start an Industrial Finance Branch in March 1993.
• First among the private sector banks in Kerala to open an overseas branch in June 1993.
• First bank in Kerala to develop an in-house, fully integrated branch automation software.
• First Kerala based bank to implement Core Banking System.
• Third largest branch network among private sector banks in India.

History

One of the earliest banks in South India, "South Indian Bank" came into being during the Swadeshi movement. The establishment of the bank was the fulfillment of the dreams of a group of enterprising men who joined together at Thrissur, a major town (now known as the Cultural Capital of Kerala), in the erstwhile State of Cochin.

South Indian Bank was registered as a private Limited Company under the companies Act of 1913 and commenced business on 29-01-1929 at Round South, Thrissur. The South Indian Bank Ltd., was formed by a group of 44 enterprising men of Thrissur who contributed Rs.500/ - each to the initial paid up capital of Rs.22,000/ -. Their main objective was to serve the merchant community of Thrissur by freeing them from the clutches of the money lenders who charged exorbitant rates of interest.The bank received very good support from the public at large. Initially the growth was slow but steady. The number of branches opened each year testified its stability and popularity. It was included in the second schedule of the Reserve Bank of India and became a scheduled Bank on 07-08-1946. SIB was the first scheduled Bank in the private sector in Kerala to get the licence under section 22 of the Banking Regulation Act 1949 from RBI on 17-06-1957. In the 85 years of its service the Bank had survived many crises. It could survive the Kerala Banking crisis of 1960 when the Palai Central Bank was closed down. A turbulent environment was experienced by banks in Kerala. It was a period of merger, amalgamations and take overs. South Indian Bank ventured to extend its helping hand to take over the assets and liabilities of 15 small banks in Kerala in 1964. It was based on the general policy of consolidation formulated by RBI.

New look

File:Southindianbank logo.gif

Old logo

South Indian Bank unveiled the new corporate logo. Mammootty, the global brand ambassador of the bank, unveiled the new corporate brand logo.

File:Mammooty - South Indian Bank - Brand Ambassador.jpeg

Mammootty is the brand ambassador of South Indian Bank.

The bank, as part of a global brand-building exercise, has signed South Indian actor Mammootty as its brand ambassador banking on the film star's `pan India appeal, clean image and popularity among the NRI community'. The initial contract between the bank and actor was for three years which was later extended for five more years. Currently SIB is the only bank in South India that has a brand ambassador.

Financial inclusion & Financial Literacy Centres

Till date, the bank has covered more than 100 villages and 15 urban centres under Financial Inclusion and opened more than 10 exclusive FLC Centres in the bank premises, which spreads across the states of Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. South Indian Bank has appointed direct Business Correspondents in the allotted villages and are supervised by a dedicated team of officers in the FIP Cell - Head Office. Recently South Indian Bank has introduced "KIOSK Banking Model" as Financial Inclusion Initiative in association with Akshaya e-centres in the state of Kerala through the software service provider - M/s Tata Consultancy services.. Kiosk is a kind of banking model, where people living in unbanked or under banked areas can avail basic banking facilities from a nearby common service centre/BC Office without visiting a regular bank branch .Basic banking needs of the public like opening of account, deposit and withdrawal of cash etc. is possible from these common service centre/BC Office.

Tie-ups

South Indian Bank has a tie-up with Christ University, Bangalore. All the financial transactions of the students as well as the staff are managed by the bank. For this purpose, the bank has an exclusive branch within the campus with 4 ATM machines functioning within the campus limits. The bank also issues ATM-CUM-DEBIT cards which is the primary identity card for the students of Christ University. ING Life has a tie-up with SIB to collect insurance policy renewal payments for ING Life customers. SIB also has bancassurance arrangements with both Bajaj Allianz General Insurance Company Ltd for distribution of non-life insurance products and the Export Credit Guarantee Corporation of India for distribution of export risk cover. It has also tied up with ICICI Prudential AMC, Franklin Templeton, TATA Mutual Fund, Sundaram BNP Paribas, UTI Mutual Funds, Reliance Mutual Fund, HSBC Investments, HDFC Mutual Fund, Fidelity Fund Management Pvt Ltd, Principal Mutual Funds, Fortis Investments, Birla Sun Life Asset Management Company Ltd. and DSP BlackRock Mutual Funds, all mutual fund houses, for distribution of their mutual fund products. In March, 2010, the bank signed an agreement with Sri Lanka's Hatton National Bank (HNB) for exchange of services and expertise between them. The MoU set out a framework between the two banks to enter into mutually beneficial arrangements to offer banking services to their respective customers. The tie-up was expected to foster trade-related cross border business like advising and confirming Letter of credit, negotiating and discounting of export-import bills and providing credit report of customers between the two countries. It would also enable the customers of HNB to utilise the services of Hadi Express Exchange, for which management support is provided by SIB. The Kerala Government had given permission to SIB to accept commercial taxes. The bank has been appointed as the largest service provider (point of sale) for the New Pension Scheme (India) launched by the Government of India.

Board of directors

• Sri.Amitabha Guha -Non-Executive Chairman
• Mr. V.G Mathew - Managing Director & CEO
• Mr.Mohan E. Alapatt - Director
• Mr.K. Thomas Jacob - Director
• Dr.John Joseph - Director
• Mr.Francis Alapatt - Director
• Mr. Salim Gangadharan - Director
• Mr. Cheryan Varkey - Director
• Smt. Ranjana Salgaocar - Director

External links

• Official web site
• Interview of Dr. V.A Joseph, Managing Director & CEO, South Indian Bank