Indian Bank to provide all products and services under one roof

Vijayawada, Sep 7 (UNI) The Indian Bank mission was to be a common man's bank by providing all financial products and services under one roof at affordable cost to the customers, its Chairman and Managing Director K C Chakrabarty said here tonight.

Addressing a press conference, he said out of the 1,405 branches in the country 580 branches existED in rural areas which would be increased to 1,000 branches by March 2007.

He said, of 585 branches, across 210 centres in the country, were under core banking solution covering 76 per cent of the business.

he said the bank would also introduce VSAT system in the current financial year. In Andhra Pradesh about 70 branches were computerised and had online facility, he added.

He said that the bank would go for public issue in 2007 and the total business was up to Rs 66,288 crore till June 2006 as against Rs 55,998 crore achieved during the last fiscal.

The net profit was increased to Rs 164.81 crore as against Rs 136.57 crore and the operating profit to Rs 229.51 crore and net interest income to Rs 409.36 crore upto June 2006, he informed.

Mr Chakrabarty said the bank had constituted 51.01 per cent by lending advances to the priority sector and lended 20 per cent credit to agriculture up to June 2006.

He said the total deposits grew by Rs 41,637 crore till June 2006 and net advances were increased to Rs 24,651 crore respectively.

The Indian Bank provided educational loans upto Rs 400 crore to more than 45,000 students during the last four to five years for pursuing higher studies.

He said Rs 392.75 crore was disbursed as credit assistance to 53,285 self-help groups in 2005-2006 representing 51 per cent increase over the number of SHGS financed last year.

Further 10,720 groups were linked to credit in June 2006 quarter, he said.

Mr Chakrabarty said the Indian Bank launched national house hold pilot project in Pondicherry which aimed to bring every house hold into banking fold by opening bank accounts by December 2006.

He said about 70 per cent house holds were not having bank account, and added the persons could open the account without paying any deposits.

On Kisan Credit Card (KCC) scheme, he said the number of KCCs issued was doubled in two-year period as against the Centre's expectation of three years. The bank issued 1.17 lakh cards with outlay of Rs 393 crore in 2005-2006.

During the first quarter in the current fiscal the bank had issued 18,585 KCCs with an outlay of Rs 77.70 scrore and so far 5,72,536 cards were issued since the bank's inceptionry getting an outstaning of Rs 1341.54 crore.

The KCC holders would be covered uner personal accident insurance scheme and all crops would be compulsorily covered under national agriculture insurance scheme, he added.

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