Punjab National Bank lines up major overseas thrust

Punjab National Bank (PNB) expects to expand internationally in big way, as it plans to set up subsidiaries or full fledged branches in Canada, Hong Kong and Singapore.

S C Gupta, CMD, PNB, said: "While the bank has a strong presence in India its overseas exposure has been limited. We have intimated the Reserve Bank of India on plans to set up subsidiaries or full fledged branches in Canada, Hong Kong and Singapore."

At present, the bank has a branch at Kabul in Afghanistan and representative offices at Almaty in Kazakhstan, London in UK and Shangai in China.

Talking about credit expansion, Gupta said that the bank will propose to the board of directors to scale up the number of mid-corporates branches to 22 from 11 branches and raise credit sanctioning limit to Rs 25 crore from Rs 15 crore.

These mid-corporates branches provide credit to medium sized corporates, with the ticket size ranging from Rs 2 crore to Rs 15 crore.

"In order cut down the time taken on credit sanctions and to improve the credit delivery to corporates, we plan to delegate more power to the general managers of these mid corporate branches," he added.

These mid corporate branches account for almost 30 to 35 per cent of credit disbursement of the bank, he said.

PNB's total business reported a 21 per cent growth to Rs 1,63,579 crore during 2004-05. The bank had set up its third large corporate branch in Chennai today, the other two branches are in Delhi and Mumbai.

Gupta said that the bank plans to launch these large corporate branches in Bangalore and Ahmedabad after assessing the feasbility of these places. These large corporate branches handle accounts of large corporate with credit limits over Rs 25 crore and above.