The Hindu Business Line : Outreach efforts have seen return of customers: BoB

Coimbatore May 1 For Dr Anil K. Khandelwal, Chairman and Managing Director of Bank of Baroda, the priorities appear to be in meeting the bank's staff (direct open house) and customers to understand staff needs and customer requirements and addressing them effectively and on time.

Speaking to Business Line, Dr Khandelwal said: "While delegation of work is essential, the HR function can never be delegated for a CEO. Indians have a passion for work. Once that passion is aroused, the vision can be achieved."

Stating that such visits help the top management identify the business potential of towns that otherwise remained untapped, he said that it also breaks the myth about CEOs of public sector undertakings being inaccessible to cadres at the bottom rung.

(His visit happened within a week of the visits of Mr Balachandran, Chairman of Bank of India, and Mr M.V. Nair, Chairman of Union Bank of India.)

He recalled how his recent visit to Nagpur led the bank to reach out to people in Ranchi, Jalgaon, Aurangabad, Sholapur and Sangli, among other industrial hubs.

"These townships, until recently, were not on our radar at the corporate level. In the course of an interaction with my staff, our attention was drawn to the business potential these towns offered. We are now focusing on these. There is a paradigm shift from corporates to SMEs."

The initiation of such efforts has gone a long way in the bank's growth story, for it is now seeing a "return of customers."

According to him, such direct open house discussions also help shorten the decision-making time, in demystification of the top management and in building harmonious relationships within the organisation.

The bank is in the process of rebalancing the portfolio from corporates to retail and SMEs.

Recovery improvement

Bank of Baroda will strive to improve its recovery and yield on advances by converting technology for business benefits, he said.

Conceding to starting late, be it in SME finance or retail, he said: "We believe in structure, strategy, process and people when we embark on any initiative. Last year, we started aggressively on retail advances. Today, retail credit accounts for 21 per cent of our total credit and the retail credit growth is 44 per cent. We recently merged our housing arm with the bank."

The greatest growth story of Bank of Baroda in its centenary year, he said, was strengthening of overseas presence.

"We will have 10 offices this year. We plan to open these at Trinidad and Tobago, Ghana, Bahrain, Qatar, London, Tanzania, Johannesburg, Kenya, Botswana and a representative office in Australia. Besides, we have sought the regulator's permission to open offices in Canada, New Zealand, Kuwait and Russia."

The bank would also be opening an electronic banking service unit in Jebel Ali free zone in the UAE.

Dr Khandelwal said the overseas branches/offices account for 20 per cent of total business and account for 32 per cent of net profit.

"The bank has undergone a total reconstruction. We plan to open six GenNext branches to reach out to children. Some 515 of our branches are open for 12 hours from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., while nine work round the clock. Besides, there are the SME loan factories, retail loan factories and corporate service branches."

More Stories on : Public Sector Banks | Strategy

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
`Financial services will be bigger than ITeS sector volume'

Credit Policy 2007-08 — Factoring in emerging concerns

Knitwear exporters' concern over rising rupee

PNB Housing net up 57%

State Bank of Indore net rises

SBH organising housing loan mela

Transfer of health insurance: Policyholders may lose `benefits'

Outreach efforts have seen return of customers: BoB

Why the RBI did not bite

Bank of Baroda may add more SME loan factories

New training centre on trade union activities

`In India, Barclays can piggyback on ABN Amro's retail franchise'

`Differentiated bank licensing proposal, an encouraging measure'