Mumbai, August 7, 2026 (Yes Punjab News)
The State Bank of India (SBI) is expanding the use of artificial intelligence across its operations and plans to move its entire cheque processing system to AI, SBI Chairman CS Setty said, as the country’s largest lender looks to improve efficiency and reduce manual intervention.
Speaking at a press briefing after the bank’s quarterly earnings announcement, Setty said SBI is deploying AI extensively in key back-office functions, including fraud prevention, proactive risk management, anti-money laundering (AML) and cheque processing.
“AI will be used extensively in fraud prevention, proactive risk management and anti-money laundering. These are all high-volume activities in the back office,” Setty said.
Highlighting SBI’s AI-driven transformation, he said the bank’s complete cheque processing operations are being shifted to artificial intelligence, which will reduce the need for manual handling and allow employees to focus on more productive roles.
“Our total cheque processing is moving to AI. It releases a lot of workforce which is currently employed in manually doing it. This is another back-office operation we are deploying. Operational improvement is our focus,” he said.
Setty clarified that the technology adoption is primarily aimed at automating repetitive, high-volume and rule-based processes rather than replacing customer-facing roles. He said AI would help employees shift towards responsibilities requiring greater human judgement and customer interaction.
For customers, the increased use of AI is expected to improve service efficiency through faster processing, enhanced fraud detection, quicker transaction monitoring and smoother handling of routine banking operations.
The SBI Chairman, however, indicated that the bank does not foresee major changes in branch services or customer interaction channels in the near future.
On SBI subsidiaries, Setty said there were no immediate plans for stake dilution or fresh listings beyond existing entities.
“There is no dilution in SBI Funds as of now, and for other subsidiaries we don’t have any plans,” he said.
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