Public sector lender Syndicate Bank is planning to consolidate its business by opening 75 new branches in the country this year, mainly focussing on Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Orissa.
The three states would have good growth in the next 20 years, Syndicate Bank Chairman and Managing Director George Joseph told reporters here last night.
At present, the bank has 55 branches in Orissa, 20 in Jharkhand and 15 in Chhattisgarh.
Though, he declined to comment on the revenue the bank was targeting from these three states, he said huge investments were going to come and the bank would capitalise on that. "We will open branches in project centres and these branches will have very exponential growth," he said.
Asked if the banking sector would be affected by the global financial crisis, he said, Indian banks were fairly insulated for the time being. Due to the global meltdown, 19 banks failed in the US. "Indian banks are strong, well regulated and conservative and hence the problems being faced by banks in the US and the UK will not affect banks in India," he said.
On whether NRI deposits would be affected, he said, NRIs in the US had lost confidence in those banks and were pulling out and depositing in Indian banks, which are offering higher NRE and FCNR rates.
"However, we are in a global village and we cannot insulate ourselves from global meltdown. The capital market is an area where volatility will be noticed as it is driven by Foreign Institutional Investors (FII)," he said.