Bangalore-based public sector lender Canara Bank opened 14 branches in Tamil Nadu on Tuesday as part of its financial inclusion initiative.
With addition of these branches, branch strength of the Bank has reached 3,286 with 834 rural branches. “Canara bank will continue its initiatives of opening branches in the unbanked and underbanked districts of the country in the future and plans to open another 100 branches in the current financial year,” a bank release said.
The public sector lender has 19 micro finance branches with 3.51 lakhs of self help groups. It has given advances over Rs 70,000 crore under priority sector lending, out of which Rs 30, 000 crore is in agriculture.
Canara Bank has registered a 79 per cent growth in its net profit to Rs 899 crore in the fourth quarter of last financial year as compared with Rs 503 crore reported in the corresponding period last year.
Rise in net profit is attributed to increase in net interest income and lower provisioning along with sound recovery from non-performing asset (NPA) accounts.
Total income of the bank rose by 33.5 per cent to Rs 7,351 crore during this period as compared with Rs 4,823 crore reported an year ago period.
Operating profit of the bank increased by 18.53 per cent to Rs 1,695 crore during this period.
