UCO bank to have representative office in China

New Delhi, Jul 18: UCO Bank today said it will open it's fifth representative office in Guangzhou in China by the year-end.

''We have got the permission from the Reserve Bank of India, and are waiting for clearance from China's regulatory authority.

The branch will be up by the end of this fiscal,'' UCO Bank Executive Director S A Bhatt told reporters here.

The bank currently has four overseas offices in Hong Kong and Singapore.

Speaking about expansion plans in India, Mr Bhatt said the bank is planning to set up 50 branches this year, thereby taking the number across the 1800 mark.

''Of these 50 branches, 15 will be specialised branches, four will be flagship corporate branches with more than Rs 50 crore each, 10 will be mid sized units and the remaining will fall in the general category,'' Mr Bhatt said.

The bank, which was the first to start Core Banking Solutions (CBS) in Kolkata, today has 6 branches running on CBS in India.

''We will take that number to 125 CBS branches by the end of the year and to 1000 branches in the next three years,'' Mr Bhatt said.

The credit disbursal target of the bank for the fiscal is Rs 6,000 crore in fresh deposits.

The bank reported a Compound Annual Rate (CAR) of 11.26 per cent as on 31, March 2006 and is looking at bringing that rate down to 11.06 after facturing basel II norms, by March 2007, Mr Bhatt said.

The Bank has also lined up major changes for this fiscal with the mobilisation of a force for the retail sector, and today launched the Small Enterprises and Retail Sales Forces in the NCR region.

Last fiscal, the bank had a business of Rs 92,300 crore, and is expecting to achieve a total business of Rs 1,10,000 crore, this fiscal.

UNI