Enthused by the enhanced profitability due to the role played by non-interest income component in its total revenues last fiscal, Andhra Bank has set a higher target for revenue to come from this segment in the current fiscal.
According to a communication sent to the shareholders, the bank plans to raise non-interest income from the existing areas of business and by adding new services.
During last fiscal, the bank took up several initiatives such as collection of direct taxes, utility payments, municipal taxes, telephone bills and Western Union Money Transfer services.
It was also appointed as corporate agent by United India Insurance to sell general insurance products through its personal banking centres (PBCs).
The bank also plans to lay more thrust on retail lending through its personal banking centres. These centres were increased to 256 during the last fiscal as against 175 in the previous fiscal.
The PBCs have lent a cumulative amount of Rs 1,200 crore to 1.2 lakh individual borrowers. Housing finance too received a big boost with total lending increasing to Rs 1,233 crore from Rs 588 crore.
The bank did a total business of Rs 32,961 crore (deposits Rs 21,062 crore and credit Rs 11,899 crore) last year and is targeting Rs 40,500 crore this year.
As part of its quality initiatives, the bank has recently implemented the Six Sigma concept for attaining higher levels of quality, profitability and customer satisfaction.
It has also identified 50 branches for receiving ISO certification of which 30 have already received the certification, 15 are about to receive and five branches are in the process of implementing the procedures. It plans to obtain the certification for another 100 branches during the current year.
The bank has promoted 572 clerks as officers during last year. Consequent to the merger of Andhra Bank Housing Finance with it, 66 employees were taken into the rolls of the bank.
In January 2003, 123 specialist officers were recruited in areas such as technology, agriculture, economics, forex and treasury management. Its total staff strength has increased to 12,991 (officers 7,180, clerks 3,519 and sub staff 2,292) from 12,812.
