To strengthen physical security and surveillance and increase the efficiency of incident response, State Bank of India has decided to hook about 6,000 of its ‘critical and high-value’ branches across the country to a central monitoring system (CMS).

Integrated monitoring

To achieve integrated monitoring, India’s largest bank will divide the 6,000 identified branches, spread across 14 circles, into 5 clusters. As at March-end 2015, the bank had 16,333 branches.

Facilities in each cluster will be remotely monitored 24x7x365 from the CMS for detecting any eventuality such as fire, theft, intruder detection, burglary, vandalism, and unauthorised activity.

Considering the complexities involved and increasing physical security threats, it was necessary to review the current security system and adapt industry best practices and technologies, as per a bank document.

Each cluster of branches will have a separate outsourced CMS. All the security systems at the branches — CCTV, fire alarm sensors, intruder alarm sensors — will be integrated with the CMS for real-time monitoring.

Event-based alerts will be sent by the branch security system automatically to the CMS for appropriate resolution.

SBI’s current surveillance system is a de-centralised system, thus not having any capability to send distress signals or CCTV feeds to any other branch/central monitoring station.

Maximum branches

Cluster 5, comprising Chennai, Kerala and Bengaluru circles, will have the highest number of branches (1,426) covered by CMS.

Within a circle, the maximum number of branches (1,073) will be covered by CMS in the Hyderabad circle.

Related Topics