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Our Bureau

Bangalore, Oct. 17 Public-sector Union Bank of India’s (UBI) credit growth is expected to conform to the current year’s target of 25 per cent.

Speaking to reporters here on Wednesday, UBI Chairman and Managing Director Mr M. V. Nair said, “Credit growth so far has not been robust, but we hope to see a change during the busy season.” Mr Nair said UBI had so far been insulated from the slowdown in credit growth in view of the buoyancy in the agriculture and SME portfolios. Both these segments of the bank have seen growths of 30 per cent and 25 per cent respectively over that in the corresponding period of the last financial year.

The advances target for the current financial year is Rs 80,000 crore. However, in the first half of the year, the bank has seen only an eight per cent growth. The growth of CASA (Current and Savings account Deposits) also was on target, he added. UBI planned to have a CASA mix of at least 36 per cent of its gross deposit base, by this financial year end.

The bank was worried about the build-up in loan delinquency and was accordingly tightening up monitoring, he said. He said that the bank was following up with second line due diligence to contain any build-up of non performing assets. “We are taking corrective measures including following up with borrowers,” he said.

The bank invested Rs 250 core in technology, so far this year. The investments would make all UBI’s branches Core Banking Solutions compliant. Besides, as part of the inclusive banking project, UBI had issued biometric smart cards to account holders in Warangal district in Andhra Pradesh, Chahiya in Uttar Pradesh, Wardha in Maharastra and to hawkers in Mumbai.

UBI has just set up a separate field general manager’s office for the Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh regions, in Bangalore. He said the office was to decentralise decision- making. The field general manager’s office would cover at least 275 branches in both these States, he added. This was the ninth such office being set up. More such offices would be set up in the coming months, he added. In addition the bank intended to open 200 more branches in the country, he said.

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