Allahabad Bank to open branches in China, Hong Kong

Allahabad, Apr 24 (UNI) Allahabad Bank which celebrated its 142nd anniversary today will soon open branches in China and Hong Kong.

Addressing a function here, Allahabad Bank Chairman and Mnaging Director (CMD) O N Singh informed that the banking behemoth was also entering in the insurance business in joint venture with the initial capital of Rs 250 crore.

The Bank was established on April 24, 1865 at Allahabad by 26 people and at present it has 1,999 branches in the country.

''We will open our 2,000th branch at Tirpur in South India in the middle of May. It would be inagurated by Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram,'' he added.

The Bank, which crossed a business of Rs 78,000 crore in the last financial year, has set a target of Rs 1,00,000 crore in the current fiscal.

''We have already computerised all our branches and opened 124 ATMs, while another ATMs are in final stages of being installed.'' Mr Singh informed most of the bank customers were from middle class of the society.

''To improve the economic condition of farmers and poor sections of society, we have launched several schemes including Kisan Credit Cards.'' To mark the anniversary, the Bank launched two schemes 'Mahila Shakti Yojana' for empowerment of women and 'General Credit Card' for people of semi-urban areas.

The CMD said the aim of the 'Mahila Shakti Yojana' was to provide loans to weaker sections of the society for starting self employment generating programmes.

Under the scheme, a woman gets a loan of Rs 5 lakh on nominal interest rates. The second scheme aims at meeting the loan needs of villages and semi-urban areas for starting business ventures.

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