PSBs to turn the heat on snazzier rivals

Public sector banks are gearing up to give pvt sector and foreign banks a run for their money.

Punjab National Bank, Union Bank of India and Bank of India are each setting up 50-75 additional branches in the current year. Many of the new branches will come up in the top 25 cities of the country where the state run banks face intense competition from the snazzy new banks.

Punjab National Bank (PNB), which has an extensive network of 4,022 branches, is opening 75 new branches this year mostly in the emerging residential areas in metros.

"Till now technology was not available for us to compete with the new private and foreign banks. But now backed with technology we will take them head on. We have 700 branches on the core banking system, which is one of the largest inter-connected networks in Asia," said U S Bhargav, general manager-retail, PNB.

The staff that have been rendered surplus due to the computerisation will man the new branches. "We have already redeployed 250 people of our workforce for marketing initiatives," said Bhargav. PNB is also rationalising its network by merging 100 of its unviable branches with existing ones.

Union Bank of India plans to add 70 new branches to its network of 2,022 branches. This is more than triple the usual addition of 20 branches a year, said a Union Bank of India official.

"We are opening branches to plug the holes in our network such as in Lower Parel, Mumbai. We have plenty of business there but no branch. If we don't start a branch there soon we might start losing business," he added.

Union Bank of India is setting up branches in the suburbs of Mumbai and Delhi; in Mulund in Central Mumbai and in Vasant Kunj and Anand Vihar in Delhi. It is increasing its foothold in the pockets of Dehradun, Bangalore, Surat, Indore, Jalandhar among other places.

Bank of India is also bent on increasing its presence in the urban and metro centres. It is putting up 50 new branches and 30 new extension counters to increase its foothold vis-a-vis its peers, said a Bank of India official. It currently has a network of 2,578 branches.