State-run banks pay better than private peers, but not at the top

If you thought public sector banks (PSBs) don't pay well, think again. India's state-owned lenders are better paymasters than their private peers, with average salaries at banks including State Bank of India (SBI) and Bank of Baroda far higher than those at ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank, a Mint analysis of data from annual reports showed.

- Abirami Sekar

However, the chiefs of private banks as well as their senior management staff continue to earn much more than their PSB counterparts.

The average salary at HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank, the largest private lenders, stood at ₹11.14 lakh and ₹13 lakh, respectively, in fiscal year 2025 (FY25). In contrast, the average salary at SBI was ₹27.2 lakh and at Bank of Baroda it was ₹22.1 lakh. The average salary was derived by dividing the aggregate employee expenses in the financial year by the number of employees at the end of the year. This means that employees who left before end-March are not accounted for in the year-end total. The analysis covered data from 10 PSBs and 10 private sector banks from FY23 to FY25.