Mumbai, Aug. 24 -- State Bank of India has asked its subsidiaries to step up as part of chairman C.S. Setty's stern message that underperformance will not be tolerated, according to a person aware of the matter.

Setty, who took over from Dinesh Khara as chairman of India's largest lender a year ago, has informed the subsidiaries that since salaries, especially of the top brass, are benchmarked to industry standards, they must perform to justify that.

"There is a message from the top that performance is key and the benchmarks are the peers in the private sector and the broader industry that each of the subsidiaries belongs to," the person cited earlier said on the condition of anonymity.

SBI has 18 subsidiaries in India, two of which-th...