Indian Overseas Bank (IOB) on Wednesday announced that it has reduced the number of loss-incurring branches (LIB) to 157 as on March 2019, from 742 branches recorded in March 2015.

In a press statement, the bank said the reduction in the number of LIBs can be attributed to the continuous efforts taken by the bank towards reduction of operating expenditure and improving overall operational efficiency.

The percentage of loss-incurring branches has drastically reduced from 22 per cent of total branches in 2015 to less than 5 per cent in March 2019. As on March 2015, IOB had 3,381 branches, while the number of domestic branches as on December 2018 stood at 3,284.

“The bank’s focus is to achieve profitability from the grassroots level. Reduction of LIB is a testimony to this effort,” said AK Srivastava, Executive Director, Indian Overseas Bank.

The bank also said it would continue to focus closely on the loss-incurring branches and carry out analysis on all other factors for overall profitability, which includes staff optimisation, strict control on overhead expenses, higher focus on recovery initiatives, and camps.

IOB will lend higher thrust on retail and MSME lending in order to improve yields, apart from diversification of risk, the release added.

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