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SBI, the country's largest lender, will onboard 12,000 freshers as probationary officers and associates in FY25. Eighty-five percent of this number are engineering graduates, its chairman Dinesh Khara said.

There is no bias towards onboarding engineers in the ranks, Khara said, stressing that this is not by design. Lately, the RBI has increased its focus on technology and penalized banks for shortcomings. Though Khara, according to an agency report, declined to share the overall tech spending by the bank, he stressed that it is the highest in the industry, with an official claiming it to be much higher than the industry average of 7-8 percent of the operational expenses. 

After training the over 3,000 POs and over 8,000 associates with some banking knowledge, they will be channeled into various business roles.

It can be noted that this comes at a time when the banking sector is increasing its dependency on technology as it looks for newer ways of enthralling the customer, while some players are also grappling with challenges on this front. "We expose them into banking and thereafter, channel them into various roles in business and IT, depending on their aptitude and temperament, and that is something which is helping us ensure that there is a continuous supply of tech manpower to the bank," Khara reportedly said. 

The development also comes at a time when the attrition in the IT sector - a favorite job avenue for engineering grads - is going down, leading to lower hiring by such firms even as the supply of engineering grads is high.

Khara said SBI invests a lot in terms of training the manpower and also has a dedicated in-house institute focused on instilling technology skills.

Every staff has to be ahead of the curve on technology, Khara said, pointing out that the bank handles a huge volume of transactions, and the same has to go through. "Technology is very important, and none of us can ignore it," he said, adding that the bank also gets guidance from the regulator on such aspects regularly.