When the coronavirus pandemic first hit, businesses across the world were forced to send their staff home abruptly. Over the past few months, with the country under lockdown, “work from home” has become the new normal, and businesses have come to embrace this idea.

The country’s largest lender, with almost 2.5 lakh employees, is now upgrading its work from home policy to a “work from anywhere” policy.

In his letter to shareholders, State Bank of India’s Chairman Rajnish Kumar wrote: “Productivity tools and technology are in already place to perform administrative work remotely.” Kumar said a “Work From Anywhere” (WFA) policy would help reduce commute time for the bank’s staff, which can

be utilized for providing better services to customers as well as ensuring better work-life balance.

SBI has already rolled out its work from anywhere policy across its 19 foreign offices, and India operations will soon be covered too. Kumar said this new policy is expected to “drive down the operational cost for the Bank, besides ensuring better motivation and productivity for staff members.”

Earlier, Aditya Puri, the managing director of HDFC Bank, had said that about a third of the bank’s employees were working from home and the practice could likely continue even after the pandemic has died down as it saves costs.

SBI is probably the first public sector lender to officially announce a larger acceptance of remote working as a permanent option. This, even as the lender said changing customer preferences could mean a big opportunity for a bank like SBI, as there is more acceptability to adopt digital channels for banking.

SBI plans to further scale up its digital banking offering, YONO, and has set a target of doubling user registrations in the next six months. It will also look to strengthen its digital platform through new product offerings like end to end home loans, pre-approved car loan and personal gold loans.