Indian Bank plans to increase retail lending

Indian Bank is planning to increase its retail lending in the coming years.

"We have disbursed close to R 1,776 crore by way of retail lending last fiscal. Retail loans comprise 24 per cent share of our total advances. We have targeted the retail lending to cross 50 per cent of total lending by 2007-end," M B N Rao, the chairman and managing director of the bank, told media persons here on Friday.

"The bank has introduced 19 products for retail lending. Personal loans and home loans alone account for 60 per cent of total lending. Recently, the bank has also sanctioned loans for purchase of house sites," Rao said.

"We plan to achieve 100 per cent computerisation in a short period from now. Out of the 1,376 branches that the bank has, 883 were computerised by the end of March 2004. The percentage of business captured through computerised branches increased from 77.97 per cent in March 2003 to 90.48 per cent in March 2004," he said.

Indian Bank at present has 101 ATMs in 32 centres and have been inter-connected for online transactions.

"The bank's ATM cardholders have access to over 2,300 ATMs across the country through the sharing arrangement with other banks like Punjab National Bank, Oriental Bank of Commerce, Global Trust Bank and UTI Bank," Rao said.

"Indian Bank achieved a forex business turnover of Rs 9,715.15 crore during the year ended March 2004. Of this, the export and other inward remittances amounted to Rs 5,321.03 crore while the imports and other outward remittances amounted to Rs 4,394.12 crore. Eighty six branches of Indian Bank are authorised to handle forex business," he said.