Govt nod for Dena bank public issue

The government has approved the second public offer of Dena Bank aggregating Rs 80 crore and comprising 8 crore equity shares of Rs 10 each at a premium.

The bank's board will meet on October 30 to draw a roadmap for the proposed issue.

After the issue, the government's stake in the bank will reduce to 51 per cent from the current 71 per cent.

Meanwhile, the bank has lined up a slew of offers for its customers. Beginning with the BillPay and m-Banking schemes that it has launched over the past couple of days, Dena Bank on Wednesday signed a strategic deal with Western Union for inbound remittances.

Lined up over the next few days are opening of two Finmarts, eleven Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) and launch of the Kisan Gold debit cards.

"This has indeed been an eventful week and a number of offers have also been lined up over the next few days. Most importantly Dena Bank is shifting to Bandra-Kurla Complex in Bandra on October 29," said Anil Khandelwal, chairman and managing director of Dena Bank.

Khandelwal was in Ahmedabad on Wednesday to announce the tie-up between Western Union Financial Services for inbound remittances.

Dena BillPay is a service that enables customers to pay various bills directly from their Dena Bank account without any cash, cheques.

Customers can use the service to pay electricity, telephone, mobile, insurance, gas and other bills. Customers need to register for Dena BillPay by providing the bank with their bank account numbers and bill details. Every month, the bank will receive a copy of the bills and will make the payment from the specified bank account.

Dena m-banking offers means to access banking information on cellular handsets. The service has been launched in 50 designated branches across 16 cities.

In the first stage, three services - account balance inquiry, mini statement and account cheque status will be introduced as part of the m-banking scheme.

In a bid to give a boost to the retail financing aspect of the bank, Dena Bank has initiated the concept of retail finmarts. Two retail finmarts are to be opened on October 29 as part of the bank's plans to open over 50 retail finmarts across the country in the current fiscal year.

The bank had already issued over 61,000 Dena Kisan Credit Cards until March 2004 and will launch the Dena Kisan Gold Debit Card on October 29.

Kandelwal insisted that that all these services were being offered with the sole intention on focusing in maximum comfort to customers of the bank.

"All banks, including Dena bank are presently concentrating their efforts on providing the best services to customers. All our schemes announced in the past three days, including the Western Union tie-up is aimed towards providing maximum comfort for customers," said the Dena Bank CMD.

Of the total 1135 branches that Dena Bank has across the country, 525 branches are in Gujarat.