* Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru Institute of Business Management, Vikram University, Ujjain.
** Helios College, Vikram University, Ujjain.
Online published on 11 January, 2012.
The customer orientation of the banking sector has significantly increased in recent times. The introduction of a variety of new products and services with emphasis on quality of services clearly indicate how banks address the issue of customer needs and requirements through a customer centric approach. The Indian banking sector continues to witness domination by the public sector banks. Over the last decade, the banking sector has witnessed the entry of many new private sector banks, resulting in momentous changes. A note worthy aspect of the private sector banks is their ability to command a proportionately higher share of net profit (9.8%), even though they have a lower share in terms of customer deposits. In comparison, the public sector banks’ share of total net profit is 70% and the share of deposits is 77%, these figures indicate lower profitability in terms of comparison of proportion of profits to deposits of private sector Indian banks.
Private sector banks are oriented toward niche banking, unlike the public sector banks, which meet the mass banking requirements. The strategies adopted by the private sector banks are more in tune with those of the foreign banks, where emphasis is given to establishing superior benchmarks of efficiency, focusing on niche customers, providing impressive customer service and bringing about operating efficiencies by using high-end technology. The study is an attempt to evaluate and compare the customer perception about retail banking service offered by State Bank of India (SBI) that represents private sector banks, being the biggest public sector bank in India & ICICI Bank that represents private sector banks, being the biggest private sector bank in India.
