SBI working on mechanism to help employees communicate with customers in local languages

SBI working on mechanism to help employees communicate with customers in local languages

Public sector lender SBI is working on a mechanism to enable its employees to communicate with customers in local languages, and emphasised that AI tools can help ease the transition and support faster learning.

"We are already working. We have launched a programme called Spark. It's a platform, where it is not only a knowledge platform, I think, but also a skill-based platform. You can even build those language-related issues...," SBI Chairman CS Setty said in response to a question.

He was participating in a CEO Panel discussion at the two-day 12th SBI Banking and Economics Conclave, which began here on Thursday.

Earlier in the day, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, in her inaugural address, urged the government-owned banks to strengthen their connection with customers by ensuring that employees at every branch can communicate in the local language.

"It's a fairly large organisation. We recruit from diverse regions across the country. So, people come with different language backgrounds. AI tools can really help ease that transition and support faster learning," Setty said.

Any adoption of technology, particularly impacting the employees, requires a great amount of change management, Setty said, adding that "it's not only that we roll out a technology, we prepare them for that, both physically in terms of skills and mentally, in terms of adapting to the changed environment".

"That is also a critical piece, which we are working on in the SBI, that while we popularise digital tools, we are also preparing the people on how to use these tools, how it will improve your efficiency and also customer centricity," he added.