Indian Bank to expand branch and ATM network
12 Jan 2008
Chennai: Indian Bank plans to strengthen its branch and ATM network by adding 40 new branches and 51 ATM centres. This will take its count of branches to 1,540 and 567 ATMs.
Forty five per cent of the bank branches are located in Tamil Nadu and account for around 40 per cent of its total usiness.
Addressing the media in Chennai, M S Sundara Rajan, chairman and managing director, said its alliance with Corporation Bank and Oriental Bank of Commerce is doing well, and they coordinate their hardware sourcing, among other matters.
Rajan said Indian bank had targeted 20 per cent growth in deposits and 25 per cent growth in advances. "The performance is in line with the target," he said.
The bank posted a total income of Rs.4545.87 crore and a net profit of Rs76.71 crore for the nine month ended 31 December 2007, up from Rs3454.27 crore and Rs524.47 crore respectively.
He said the sudden jump in other income during the nine month period is due to recoveries of non performance assets and activating the bank's treasury operations.
Indian Bank had recovered Rs.452 crore of NPA during the period under review and the net NPA fell to 0.21 per cent of the net advances. The recoveries would be grouped under the head, "other income", Rajan explained.
According to Rajan, the bank's retail portfolio is healthy with retail loan NPAs of around 2 per cent on total retail advances of Rs7,100 crore.
"The processing of retail loan applications are centralised now and the branches act as the loan distribution agencies. This enables tighter control on loan sanctions," Rajan said.
Speaking about the deposit mix Rajan said the bank is focusing on low cost deposits and has shifted its focus from bulk deposits to retail.
The bank has created a new position called chief thinking officer to think and come out with innovative products.
According to Rajan the bank is holding meetings with the senior citizens to highlight the features of its reverse mortgage product.
"Till date we have 12 clients and we will be interacting with the target segment to popularise the product," he Rajan.
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