The bank plans to cover up the shortage of nearly 2,500 officers in retail banking through the new recruitments this year, Axis's president (HR) S Bhattacharya said.

"The attrition rate has gone up to 14.6 per cent in the current fiscal, up 2 per cent from last year's rate of 12 per cent. This has come as a challenge," Bhattacharya said.

According to him, the country's private banking sector has an average attrition rate of 18 per cent, which is growing every year."Attrition rate among junior-level staffers of our bank has been found comparatively higher, which will be at around 18 per cent in FY08, as against about 16 per cent last year," he said.

The total recruitments of the bank in the last fiscal stood at 3,800, of which, around 2,000 were done through lateral route, he said.

With a view to promoting rural talents, Axis had recruited nearly 350 aspirants from Tier-II business schools in the last year, while it is planning to take up to 750 officers this year, Bhattacharya said. Currently, Axis Bank has a total headcount of 13,389 employees.