Allahabad Bank has drawn upon a five-year time horizon to network all its 1,000 branches.
"Connectivity at the bank will be done in two phases", said the chairman and managing director of the bank, B Samal, while inaugurating its seventh automated teller machine in the city today.
The good news for customers is that the bank has also drawn up plans of opening a total of 100 boutiques this year. This will put its total number of boutiques to 300.
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The bank has been setting up 100 boutiques every year for the last three years. The boutiques are outlet for speedy disbursal of loans and credit to retail clients and has helped the bank achieve its target for retail disbursement last year.
The first phase of networking will involve networking 100 odd branches at Lucknow, Kolkata, Delhi and Mumbai. The rest of the branches will be done in the second phase. The bank has allocated a total of Rs 100 crore for information technology this year. "We will network our branches on a trial basis by September this year," he added.
The bank has engaged Institute for Research and Development of Banking Technology for advising it on networking process. It has also engaged the National Institute of Banking Management and Banker's Training College for training its employees as computerisation and networking requires.
"Until all our employees are properly trained we will not be able to reap the full benefit of networking and computerisation," said Samal.
After the bank has attained its first phase of networking, it will go in for Internet banking. The CMD said that the bank will set up another 59 ATM's this year thus taking the total number of installations to 100 by the end of the fiscal. Investment for the purpose will be close to Rs 5 crore.
The bank is also in the process of mechanising its rural branches, although these will not be networked on a one-to-one basis.