29 Nov Sbi Legal Head
Handling of customer disputes/complaints. Coordination with external legal counsel on product and litigation matters. In his previous role as Chief Managing Director of the State Bank of India, Bhopal Circle, he led two states, namely MP and Chhattisgarh. Previously, he was Chief Executive Officer of Financial Control at SBI Corporate Centre in Mumbai. SBI Mutual Fund is a payment system introduced by the State Bank of India and established in 1987 with its headquarters in Mumbai, India. SBIFMPL is a joint venture between State Bank of India, an Indian public sector bank, and Amundi, a European asset management company. Shri Mihir Narayan Prasad Mishra is Managing Director (Partners and Subsidiaries) of the State Bank of India. In the current role, Shri Mishra is the SPOC of the State Bank of India for its national subsidiaries and RRBs and will be actively involved in the strategic and corporate matters of these companies. Previously, he managed a retail network consisting of approximately 647 SBI stores in Bihar/Jharkhand. Shri Mishra previously worked at SBI New York for about 2.5 years and for about one year at SBI General Insurance Co Ltd representing SBI. The SBI card was introduced in October 1998 by the State Bank of India and GE Capital. SBI Card is registered as SBI Cards and Payment Services Private Limited (SBICPSL) and has its registered office in Gurgaon, Haryana.
Ugen Tashi Bhutia joined SBI Card in January 2012 as Head of the Legal Team. “Given that this was a B2C business, and that credit cards in particular are a push product in the Indian market, we saw a plethora of consumer disputes – the number of complaints filed against the company was almost 3.5 times higher than in current cases,” says Bhutia. With the help of knowledgeable team members and some changes in case strategy associated with technology support, his legal team was able to reduce the total number and even reduce the overall influx of cases by nearly 150%, while significantly increasing the win rate. “The total amount of compensation claimed compared to the actual amount of compensation paid has dropped dramatically,” he adds. With regard to transactions, the processing time for concluding an agreement has been reduced from a few days to a few hours. The team used technology and also took care of scanning. The Bhutia team began meeting with the sales team and working with them to understand what were the essential elements of a contract, which terms are negotiable and which are not. The entire team is divided between the litigation team, which has expertise in handling cases filed against the company, the management consulting team, which deals with all regulatory, transactional and corporate law aspects, the debt collection team, which uses legal tools for fraud recovery and risk management (FRM) and deals with the prosecution of cases where fraud has been detected.
Over the past three years, SBI Card has seen phenomenal growth as the company is now the second largest credit card issuer in India and investments have increased significantly. This has resulted in a significant increase in marketing connections, co-branding partnerships, and aggressive sales, which has impacted the overall volume of work for the legal team. Bhutia and her legal team have skillfully worked with the company to achieve such numbers and enable creative marketing and sales initiatives, while strengthening risk profiling and knowing your client`s management (KYC) in accordance with applicable laws. Bhutia`s leadership has been crucial to this development. He describes his role and transition to in-house work as challenging. He says: “Through experience, I have found that the role of General Counsel has evolved over time. The General Counsel is not expected to act in an advisory capacity on various aspects of the law, but also to guide the Company in achieving the Company`s growth in a sustainable manner. The incumbent will be responsible for the legal support in documentation and litigation of the fund and portfolio management team, as well as the overall work of the firm. The role will also be responsible for: As Managing Director, he led the international banking group, corporate and treasury operations and the bank`s non-bank subsidiaries, namely SBI Cards, SBIMF, SBI Life, SBI General, etc. He also transparently executed the merger of five former associated banks and Bhartiya Mahila Bank with SBI. In addition, he led the bank`s risk, IT and compliance functions in various roles.
In December 2017, the State Bank of India and Carlyle Group acquired GE Capital`s stake in SBI Card, and the company changed its legal name to SBI Cards and Payments Services Limited in August 2019. In March 2020, SBI Card became the first pure credit card company to be listed on the stock exchange in India.