The country’s largest banker State Bank of India has not been affected by the ransomware attack and it sees no disruption in ATM services.

According to Partha Pratim Sengupta, Chief General Manager, Kolkata circle, SBI, around 1,000 ATMs in the circle need to be recalibrated with the necessary software upgrades, while over 2000-odd ones are already updated.

Currently, he said, all ATMs are working and the SBI systems in his circle, have not been affected at all.

The Kolkata circle includes the States of West Bengal and Sikkim and the Union Territory of Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

ATM upgrade

“We are in talks on how to upgrade the ATMs so that there is minimum inconvenience to the customers. Either the upgrade can be done at the back-end or we have to go to each machine (ATM) and upgrade. In case of the second option, the ATMs will have to be closed during the recalibration period. But it will be for a few minutes,” he told reporters.

Home loans

Sengupta was speaking to the media to announce the bank’s decision to promote affordable housing by reducing loan rates to both house-buyers and builders.

According to him, housing loan rates have come down by 25 basis points to 8.35 per cent for women; and for others it was 8.40 per cent.

A similar 25 basis point cut has also been announced for builders including those who were looking to develop such projects.

In the Kolkata circle, the SBI is partnering 300 such builders; including 14 who are into affordable housing.

Interestingly, the growth in home loan disbursements in the Kolkata circle has been one of the highest for SBI.

“We are keen to tap the youth who are being employed by the IT sector as well as government employees like the primary school teachers,” Sengupta said.

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