Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Thursday, Feb 12, 2004
Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Thursday, Feb 12, 2004 |
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Money & Banking
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Credit Market Syndicate Bank's advances up on infrastructure lending Our Bureau
Chennai , Feb. 11 SYNDICATE Bank's advances increased 22 per cent (or by Rs 2,800 crore), in the first three quarters of the current year, mainly because of its lendings to the infrastructure sector, the bank's Executive Director, Mr K.M. Shet, said today. The bank lent around Rs 1,000 crore to the power sector and Rs 1,400 crore under `personal banking', Mr Shet told Business Line. Mr Shet said that the bank's investment portfolio was of the order of Rs 18,000 crore, of which its extra-SLR holdings may come to about Rs 3,500 crore. The average yield on these securities is around 9.8 per cent. In the first nine months of the current year, the bank made a treasury profit of Rs 325 crore, about Rs 100 crore more than in the same period last year. Mr Shet said that Syndicate Bank proposed to open 150 more branches shortly and 50 more extension counters. Applications have been made to the RBI and approvals have come for 32 branches, he said. He said that the bank needed to increase its presence in the North, particularly in Gujarat, Rajasthan, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and West Bengal. Also, since the North East is fast integrating with the rest of the country, "we are interested in going there." Answering a question, Mr Shet said that the bank's provision cover (percentage of NPAs covered by provisions) had increased from 48 per cent last year to 51 per cent as at end-December 2003. He said there would be a "substantial increase in coverage by March," so that the net NPAs fall below four per cent. He said the bank proposed to open representative offices in South Africa and some places in the Gulf.
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