Union Bank to train Pak bankers

Mumbai, Mar 29 (UNI) Public sector Union Bank of India will be the first bank in India to train Pakistanis bankers at the Bankers' Development Institute at Karachi from the next fiscal year.

According to Union Bank CMD Cherian Varghese, the bank has been recently nominated by the Pakistani Institution to depute its faculty members to design and deliver training programmes on management and banking for officials from various banks in Pakistan.

''We have recently received the Government's permission to take up the project'', Mr Varghese told reporters after inaugurating the Bank's museum here today.

The bank has its own School of Management and Staff College at Bangalore which recently won the prestigious Golden Peacock National Training Award.

Mr Varghese, who is relinquishing the CMD's post on March 31, said that the bank also received the Reserve Bank's approval for opening its first overseas branches in Hongkong and Doha and also representative offices at Shanghai and Dubai.

''We would have to go overseas to provide banking facilities to growing number of our clients who are venturing into overseas operations, mainly in China and Gulf regions'', he observed.

In India, the Bank has been very active in infrastructure finance and as on December 31, 2005, the total advances to this sector was Rs 5,098 crore spreading over different sectors such as Power (Rs 2,794 crore), Telecom (Rs 1,099 crore), Road and Ports (Rs 769 crore) and others (Rs 436 crore). The advances to SMEs sector stood at Rs 6,503 crore.

On liquidity, Mr Varghese said that the condition is adequate with the bank as the capital adequacry ratio is expected to be above 12 per cent at the end of current fiscal year.

It has launched deposit mobilisation programme recently to augment additional deposits from domestic as well as non-resident Indians (NRIs) and already enrolled over 3.30 lakh new accounts from individuals.

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