BoB to recast subsidies to popularise Baroda Life Band

Mumbai, Apr 28 (UNI) Proclaiming that retail banking will be the growth engine for Bank of Baroda (BoB) in FY 07, bank's Chairman and Managing Director A K Khandelwal said that his priority during this fiscal would be to restructure the bank's three subsidiaries--BoB Capital, Bob Asset and BobCards and make them turbo-charged entities on their own.

''Public sector banks in general have not been able to devote much time to their subsidiaries and the same is true of BoB but we will redress this situation this fiscal,'' he told mediapersons after announcing the bank's FY 06 results here today.

The bank is exploring foreign tie-ups for the three subsidiaries ''as they will bring in high-levels of competencies, a global view, besides technology, knowledge and of course, finance,'' he said.

While he declined to provide a time-frame for the completion of their restructuring, he said that the entire process is most likely to be completed by the end of this fiscal.

The bank is also scouting for a JV partner for its life insurance business and is likely to zero on its partner very shortly, he revealed, adding that in the meantime we will set up a corporate agency for the insurance business. ''A JV will take time to be set up as regulatory approvals will have to be obtained and hence, in order to save time, we have decided to go ahead with this business by setting up a corporate agency,'' he said.

The move will also enable BoB to popularise its Baroda Life brand in the interim, he said.

Highlighting the fact that 126 of the bank's branches were already operating on the core banking solution (CBS), Mr Khandelwal said that 500 branches would be covered by CBS by September and 850 by March 2007.

On its international business which is presently contributing 15 per cent to its total revenues, Mr Khandelwal said that the bank is targeting at increasing it to 20 per cent. The bank presently has 59 overseas branches and plans to set up an overseas banking unit (OBU) in Singapore within the next three months besides opening a branch in Trinidad and Tobago in the West Indies.

The bank will shortly be holding an international conference in Dubai to showcase its international banking expertise, he announced.

The bank's strategy this fiscal would be to focus strongly on retail initiatives, the SME segment and growing farm credit besides enhancing its marketing of deposit products to support expansion of its loan book, he stated.

The bank's board of directors have also recommended a dividend of 50 per cent.

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