Mumbai: State Bank of India, the country’s largest bank, is nudging its employees and their dependents to operate a stock demat account with its brokerage arm, SBI Securities. Any employee wishing to open a demat account with any other brokerage will have to seek prior approval from his or her controller not below the rank of chief general manager within six months. SBI’s deputy managing director, who heads corporate development, said this in a letter dated May 27 to all employees.
SBI has more than 230,000 employees spread across 22,500 branches in the country. The SBI group is also the biggest assmanager in India’s mutual fund industry, with assets under management (AUM) exceeding the pooled funds run by either the ICICI Group or the HDFC Group.
The letter also said that the employees should submit statements of their and their wholly-dependent family members’ demat or trading accounts on a quarterly basis to their respective controllers for verification.
The directive also stated that breach of these instructions shall be treated as ‘gross misconduct for award staff.’
