 "Bharatiya Mahila Bank feels it should be merged with another PSU")
The need of the hour is government's support for lateral recruitment, appointment of professional independent directors and some relaxation when it comes to statutory requirements.
Speaking to Business Standard after inaugurating two branches in Chennai, S M Swathi, executive director of BMB, who now heads the Bank, said that we have huge potential not only in urban areas, but also in semi-urban and rural areas. All it need is some more time to stablise and some support from the government.
The bank need permission to go for lateral recruitment as the senior level people, including DGMs, AGMs and others have come on a deputation for three years and they will be going back now.
"In the next 2-3 years, our own people can pick up the way they are working now. Here and there we need to go for lateral recruitment for specailised people for various departments," said Swathi.
The bank need professionals, including CAs, from IT field and others as independent directors, to help in decision making. The bank also need some relaxation when it comes to meeting the agriculture loan target as it don't have much reach. The other key requirements is in the IT infrastructure.
On the rumours BMB may be taken over by another PSU or will be merged, she said that so far no such information came to them. "My view is that bank should not be merged considering it has different mandate, which is to empower women and it is a specialised Bank."
During the first half of 2015-16, the Bank did not grow as expected, owing to the rumor. "We were also asked not to go in a big way, so we could not open desired number of branches and business. We really took off from the second half of the year and did wonderfully well," said Swathi.
She noted, CASA increased to 23 per cent from 9.5 per cent in one year. The growth is highest compared to any other banks in the country. CASA levels increased mainly due to over 3,000 financial literacy campaigns conducted across all the branches which attracted more women to enroll and made their saving to deposit.
NPA level is less than 0.25 per cent. Bank continues to report profit, against SBI Cap's initial projection of loss for first five years. NPA levels are lower since the bank don't go for big ticket loans and keep following up the accounts.
The bank has increased number of branches to 100 from 56 in just four months. As of today, the BMB has 102 branches and planning to take it to 150 this year. Bank's client base doubled to 3.5 lakh in one year, of the total client base around 70 per cent are women.
"This Bank is doing well and number speaks itself for the same," she said.
BMB set a target to close the financial year with a total business of around Rs 5,000 crore as against Rs 1,550 crore currently.
