The Hindu Business Line : Corporation Bank to focus on retail, agri, SME sectors

Kochi, Nov. 27 Looking at the future expansion and untapped potential, the public sector Corporation Bank has set a target of achieving a business of Rs 1.50 lakh crore in the next two years.

Elaborating the business strategy at a press conference here on Thursday, Mr J.M. Garg, the Chairman and Managing Director, said that bank would be focusing on retail business, agriculture and SME sectors. The endeavour will be to improve the CASA (current and savings deposits) portfolio by adopting clientele expansion programme. The recently concluded ‘100 days Savings Bank campaign’ was a success with a total of around 7.6 lakh new customers acquired during the campaign period, he said.

He pointed out that the bank had recently surpassed a milestone of Rs one lakh crore of business and had joined the league of mid-sized banks. Traditionally, the bank has grown by 30 per cent and it is expected that the business would touch Rs 1.15 lakh crore by the end of the current fiscal. However, the growth cannot be sustained in the present scenario and it is looking at 22 per cent growth. Even at this growth rate, the bank could achieve the Rs 1.50 lakh crore target, he added.

Expand network

Besides, the bank has chalked out plans to expand its network to acquire a pan-India status and would open at least 100 branches a year to take the tally to about 1,400. The bank, with 1,032 branches, has licences for 62 outlets, which will be opened shortly. The thrust of expansion will be primarily in the North and Eastern parts, particularly in the States of Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab and West Bengal. To man these branches, the bank has drawn up short-term manpower plan and for the current year, the process is on to recruit over 1,000 staff at various levels, he said.

Rural branches

According to Mr Garg, the bank has already covered 200 villages and has plans to reach a total of 400 villages by March 2009. While opening rural branches in future, the bank will adopt this business model for outreaching. It has got approval from the RBI for all types of services in mobile banking and will shortly be launching an array of mobile banking products. Door step banking will also be introduced shortly with differential pricing so that senior citizens will be benefited, he said.

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