SBT posts Rs 386.11 cr profit

By Staff
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Google Oneindia News

Thiruvananthapuram, Apr 24: The State Bank of Travancore (SBT) has registered a profit of Rs 386.11 crore as against Rs 326.28 crore during the previous year, an increase of 18.34 per cent. Talking to newspersons here after the Board of Director's meeting, bank's Managing Director M Ramaswamy said the profit obtained was the highest in the bank's history and it had increased six times during 2000-2008.

The SBT had reached a milestone of Rs 63,000 crore turnover during the year, he said. The deposits also had tremendously increased touching Rs 35,353.89 crore, a growth of Rs 4,369.88 crore during the period. The Board of Directors of the Bank had decided to pay a dividend of 100 per cent for the third year in succession, he said. Asked how much the Bank had to shell out with respect to the farmer's loan waiver scheme, Mr Ramaswamy said the bank was yet to receive the guidelines and the process would be completed in time, once it were received.

On the bank's performance during the last fiscal, he said the total advances recorded Rs 28,136.62 crore, a growth of 14.24 per cent. The lending to agriculture segment registered a growth of Rs 738.56 crore and reached Rs 3,689.91 crore, he said and added that new products were launched in the agricultural segment this year. The 'Golden Fibre Plus' for providing financial assistance to the coir industry workers, 'Produce Marketing Loans' to farmers were the new initiatives by the bank.

Pointing out that the ''Janapriya Savings Account,'' aimed at providing banking services at affordable cost was received well, Mr Ramaswamy said more than 1.56 lakh accounts were opened last year under this scheme. The housing loans showed an upward trend at 16.62 per cent during the year and there was 34.29 per cent growth in education loans during the period.

In the Small and Medium Enterprises, the advances stood at Rs 3,338 crore, a growth of 14.45 per cent. Two new schemes -- 'Finance for Automobile Workshops' and 'Finance for Hostels' - were introduced in this fiscal, he added.

In Micro Credit, the bank had assisted 14,265 Self-Help Groups with a total amount of Rs 9.46 crore.

In order to increase the services in the Gulf sector, the SBT would open 'Representative Office' in Dubai within two months. The ''NRI Care'' Health Insurance Company was modified to make it more attractive to NRI clients, covering both personal accident and hospitalisation, Mr Ramaswamy said.

Stating that the SBT had implemented new initiatives under Business Process Re-engineering (BPR) programmes, he said the Agricultural Centre Processing Cell was opened at Palakkad for speeding up credit delivery to farmers.

In a significant development, the SBT had migrated to RBI's New Capital Adequacy Framework under Basel-II from last month.

During the year, he said the SBT had signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with four Credit Rating Agencies. As part of business promotion, the SBT had entered into a pact with Franklin Templeton Investments (India) Private Limited, UTI Asset Management Company Limited and TATA Asset Management Company Private Limited for distribution of their mutual fund products through its branches.

He also said the bank proposed to open 25 more branches and also to open 200 more ATMs during the coming fiscal.

UNI

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