Bank of India to cover all branches under core banking
Executive Director of the bank M. Narendra told presspersons here on Sunday that about 95 per cent of its 3,049 branches were already covered under core banking. It had over 500 ATMs and planned to open another 500. The bank had 28 branches abroad, including five representative offices. It had licence to open branches in Doha, Karachi, Madagascar, China, New Zealand, Vietnam, Egypt, etc.
He said that several industrial units had benefited from the special loan restructuring programme. The bank had special branches for micro, small and medium enterprises in 60 clusters and had started SME help centres in 48 zones. “We have done several innovative cluster-related schemes,” he said.
The bank had good response in the corporate segment. It wanted to create a synergy between the MSME and corporate segments and continue its focus on lending to these segments. It also planned to expand its clusters.The bank had implemented its debt swap scheme in 91 villages and declared several of these as money-lender free. It was the lead bank in 48 districts and had introduced biometric cards in one of these. The bank planned to extend it to 11 other lead districts this year.
P.V. Krishna Murthy, Zonal Manager for Coimbatore, said it had 92 branches in 19 districts. The loan outstanding to SMEs was about Rs. 800 crore and nearly 48 per cent of it (about 320 accounts) had been rescheduled or restructured under the special scheme. Meetings were held with entrepreneurs to find out their needs. The bank’s total credit growth in the State in 2008-2009 was about 25 per cent. The bank was giving loans against gold and the amount outstanding under this scheme in this zone was Rs. 140 crore. It had extended Rs. 60 crore loans to self-help groups.
Under the debt waiver scheme for farmers, Rs. 42 crore was waived, he said.
