India’s largest bank wants a closer look at all its branches

The document, a call for consultants to bid for the project, said that the State Bank of India (SBI) plans to “enhance security, monitoring, reporting and incident management in real-time”. It also says that by creating a “unified surveillance infrastructure”, the project aims to establish a “secure environment for customers and employees while safeguarding critical assets.”

This round-the-clock system is intended for monitoring, reporting, active deterrence and for managing incidents like robbery and fire breakouts.

SBI currently has 22,685 branches across the country, the most among domestic lenders. According to the document, SBI wants the consultant to look at a surveillance solution that would account for a 20% rise in branches over the next five years.

The document mentioned above says this project would allow its security team to oversee all activities of the local head office branches. Further, feed from these local head offices would be integrated into a dashboard at a single command centre in its Mumbai head office or corporate centre.

The consultant selected for the role will need to visit a minimum of five each of rural, semi-rural and urban branches, besides others, to figure out the feasibility of establishing a centralized monitoring station, command centre, and incident management system.

An email sent to SBI seeking comments remained unanswered till press time.

To be sure, branches remain indispensable in India even as banks have been leaning towards digital channels to reach customers. In 2024, according to data from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), India had 159,633 bank branches, an increase of 3% from the previous year, as compared to a 2.4% increase between 2022 and 2023. A bulk of these branches is in rural and semi-urban areas.

Rising deployment of smart surveillance systems

Experts said that surveillance of branches and automated teller machines (ATMs) is not new. However, while they have CCTV cameras, most of these are not equipped with smart systems that can detect and report threats in real time.

“About 20% of ATMs and 40% of bank branches in India have AI-based surveillance capabilities,” said Rishi Agrawal, co-founder and chief executive of regulatory technology company TeamLease Regtech. “What sets AI surveillance apart from traditional ones is that while cameras keep a record for post-facto analysis, AI can prevent incidents.”

Agrawal said an AI-based surveillance camera can detect threats based on certain patterns. “If, suppose, someone is seen using an ATM while keeping the face covered, it is seen as a red flag,” he said, adding that other triggers include tailgating into the ATM, entering multiple times, going to bank branches and not performing any transactions but just loitering around.

That apart, AI systems can also identify weapons and alert law enforcement, Agrawal said, adding that these technologies are not very expensive.

“SBI’s move to implement centralized surveillance across its branches marks a transformative shift in the banking sector, embracing tech-driven security and real-time operational oversight,” said Manjunath Rao, advisor for managed services, CMS Info Systems.

CMS offers cash management, managed services like providing software solutions for ATMs, and remote monitoring of ATMs, among others. Rao added that SBI’s initiative enhances security, accelerates risk mitigation, ensures compliance, and improves operational efficiency.

That said, e-surveillance as a practice is not limited to tracking threats through cameras and at physical locations. E-surveillance primarily means using data and technology to monitor all electronic aspects, which is different from physical surveillance where banks used to have physical security services.

Kailash Prabhu, partner for risk consulting and financial services at EY India, said such surveillance includes emails, chats and, for traders, portals used to communicate with brokers and customers.

“E-surveillance in this space looks at whether the person is indulging in market manipulation activities like spoofing, quote stuffing, etc., and also to detect potential risks like insider trading,” said Prabhu. “From a risk and compliance perspective, e-surveillance is also done to check the conduct of the person and for early identification of market abuse behaviour.”

For perspective, in November 2023, e-surveillance solutions provider iVIS said it will strengthen the branch-level security operations of private sector lender ICICI Bank. This would include ATMs and cash counter operations with real-time threat mitigations, remote security management and automated response systems.

iVis said in a statement that it is skilled in its e-surveillance segment with a central command centre in its Hyderabad office that oversees 20,000 ATMs and banking sites across the country.