Highlights:

• Banking & Finance industry will witness prosperity and progress in times to come
  
• "We have adequate number of people who are looking for a job but poor quality of skill and education results in low level of income or unemployment," says Mr. K. C. Chakrabarty, Chairman and MD of PNB
  
• "The Banking and Finance industry sectors need lakhs of trained people to keep growing," says Mr. S. Venkatesh, President of IFBI.

Indian Banking & Financial service industry is not doing as good as previous years owing to the global economic slump and slowdown in India. But, India's GDP growth can average over 7 per cent in next five years even as risks to the global economy continue to remain high.

According to the Annual Policy 2008-09 of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the central bank, key monetary aggregates have witnessed some growth in 2008-09. This is reflected in the changing liquidity positions arising from domestic and global financial conditions and the policy initiatives taken by the government.

According to a study by Dun & Bradstreet (an international research body)—"India's Top Banks 2008"—there has been a significant growth in the banking infrastructure. Taking into account all banks in India, there are overall 56,640 branches or offices, 893,356 employees and 27,088 ATMs. Public sector banks made up a large chunk of the infrastructure, with 87.7 per cent of all offices, 82 per cent of staff and 60.3 per cent of all automated teller machines (ATMs).

Speaking on the scenario of the Banking industry, AK Bansal, General Manager, Union Bank of India said, “We have recently recruited 2,000-3,000 employees from various colleges and Business schools. We are seeing signs of prosperity and progress in time to come.”

Banking has emerged as the hottest market segment before the economic downturn. The sector is growing so swiftly that developing economies (like China and India) may overtake banks in the richest countries of the world by 2050. China and India show the greatest growth potential through organized growth and merger and acquisitions, according to a recent PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), in a report on the banking sector.

 “Driven by large capital and global liquidity, the M&As, including inbound and outbound deals, are expected to cross the US$ 100-billion figure in calendar 2007. By May 2007, M&A deals in India had touched the US$ 46.8-billion mark. India’s domestic banking market could beat China’s in the long-run, the report said, noting that the country has seen major financial sector reforms since 1991 with private and foreign banks gaining market share,” says the Indian Brand Equity Foundation (IBEF).

Private and foreign banks hire MBAs, Chartered Accountants, finance experts and economists. If you are a fresh graduate, you can get a job as a direct marketing executive, a personal banking executive or a home banking executive. You can log on to any of these banks’ websites and find the ‘Careers with us’ option, which should give you a good picture of what kind of vacancies there exist with the concerned banks, how you should go about applying etc.
Let’s take a look at the biggest names dotting the banking landscape in India.

State Bank of India (SBI)

The State Bank of India (SBI) is the largest bank in India. If one goes by the number of branch offices and employees, SBI is the

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