UCO Bank targets trade loan segment through Sales Force initiative

Mumbai, Aug 24 (UNI) UCO bank kick-started its 12th small eneterprises sales force initiative for Mumbai region to take control of the largely neglected trade loan segment.

Briefing mediapersons UCO Bank CMD V Sridar, ''Since the personal loan segment is well taken care of by the foreign banks and also as the sector has become highly competitive, we prefer to stick to our strength and target areas which are neglected like trade loans.'' ''Individuals like doctors, corporates and traders are targeted by equipped and trained sales personnel who prepare a loan appraisal based on the repayment capability of the borrower. The whole processing is well designed to avoid bad loans and to make disbursement highly efficient,'' added Mr Sridar.

Based on the performance of the already existing 11 centres, who outperformed their set target by 115 per cent. Mr Sridar said, we expect to replicate the same strategy in Mumbai too.

Citing reasons for the launch Mr Sridar added, ''We wanted to instil competition at the lower level of the organisational structure. For this purpose the customers have been divided into four groups as Flagship Corporates who have a limit of 50 crore and above, Midlevel corporates with a limit of 3 crore to 50 crore, Small enterprise segment with a limit of 3 crore and less and finally the Retail segment, which includes the personal banking, Car loans, housing loans and the consumer loans.'' The bank expects to increase its fee based share through the Flagship corporates venture, by appointing four relationship managers, since its market share stands at 3 per cent but the real fee based share is at meagre 1 per cent. The strategy is more or less the same for the mid corporate business too.

On the performance front, UCO Bank has till now mobilised Rs 9 crore from the small enterprise sector. The housing loan rates have been increased to 8.5 per cent, the PLR is up to 12 per cent and the Net Non Performing Asset is at 2.09 per cent which the Bank expects to bring down to 1.05 per cent by March next year.

The Bank is planning to improve its services by starting the debit card facility and opening 50 new branches as well as increasing the ATM centres to 400 by the end of the year.

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