IOB to open seven field general managers' offices

Indian Overseas Bank (IOB) will open seven field general manager's offices by June 2006 in order to augment its business in the current financial year.

The bank, which opened its first-ever FGM office in Kochi today, has plans to set up similar offices in New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad and Coiambatore.

Addressing a media conference here, T S Narayanaswami, CMD of the bank, said that IOB had targeted a total business of Rs 103,000 crore in the current fiscal and it aimed to cross the Rs 100,000 crore mark by the end of December, 2006.

In Kerala, where IOB has a branch network of 118, the total business target for 2006 -07 is Rs 5,500 crore. By the close of last fiscal, the bank had achieved a total business of Rs 3,800 crore in the state.

He said that the bank had achieved 23 percent increase in business and earned a net profit of Rs 783.34 crore in the last fiscal as against Rs 651.36 crore in the previous year, recording a growth of 20.26 percent. The total business of the Chennai-based bank has reached Rs 86,288 crore.

"We don't intend to expand our capital base through public offer as we are rather comfortably placed with our present capital adequacy ratio. We are now focusing on expanding EPS which has increased by 25 percent during the last fiscal.''