SBI merger: VRS for 12,000 SBI and associate banks' employees?

State Bank of India's (SBI) chairperson Arundhati Bhattacharya on Monday said that the mega merger between SBI and its five associate banks will be completed by May 27, 2017. 

In a meeting held on Monday, Bhattacharya said, “The merger process of SBI with its associate banks and Bhartiya Mahila Bank (BMB) will commence from April 24, 2017.  From this day, every week one bank will be merged with SBI and by May 27, 2017, we expect the entire data merger.”

These five associate banks are: State Bank of Bikaner & Jaipur, State Bank of Hyderabad, State Bank of Mysore, State Bank of Patiala, State Bank of Travancore.

On staffing, she said, “No employee of the associate banks or BMB would be asked to leave." 

"Branches will also not be eliminated after the merger,” she said. 

Bhattacharya added, “At this point of time, Voluntary Retirement Scheme (VRS) for employees is not under consideration. But post merger, in future, there will be an option for employees to adapt this scheme. SBI will be very open to their choices. ”

Employees who have completed 25 years of service in the associate banks will be eligible for VRS. 

As per SBI, there are about 12,000 employees who are eligible for VRS. The bank said that nearly 13,000 employees of the bank are near their retirement age. 

With this merger, SBI will enter the league of top 50 global banks with a balance sheet of Rs 41 lakh crore, 2,77,000 employees, 50 crorecustomers and more than 22,500 branches and 58,000 ATMs. 

SBI's market share will increase to 22% from 17%.  

As on December 2016, SBI's standalone net profit stood at Rs 2,610 crore, a whopping rise of 134% as against Rs 1115.3 crore during the same period in the last fiscal. Net NPA was at 4.24% (Rs 61,430.45 crore) in Q3FY17 against 2.89% (Rs 40,249.12 crore) in December 2015.