SBS plans to double ATMs this fiscal

To implement core banking solution by Sept

0The Bhavnagar-based State Bank of Saurashtra will complete implementing core banking solutions by the middle of the current fiscal year.

The bank, which is in the middle of a technology upgradation programme, will connect all its branches under the CBS platform by September this year. The bank will spend Rs 50 crore on its technology upgradation programme.

The bank, which added 100 automated teller machines (ATMs) in the past fiscal year to its network of 24 ATMs, plans to double the number of ATMS by the end of this fiscal year. The number of ATMs has increased to 124 by March 2004. This will be doubled to 250 by the end of the current fiscal year, said S K Singh, managing director, State Bank of Saurashtra.

"Implementation of core banking solutions will be the focus of the bank, at least in the first half of the year. The State Bank of India will connect all its branches under the CBS platform by September this year," Singh said on Wednesday. Singh said a majority of the ATMs will be in Gujarat, where the bank also has the most number of branches.

"But there will be some outside the state as well," Singh said. The bank has also chalked out a branch expansion plan. The bank will add 15 branches in the current fiscal year to its network of 414 branches.

Twelve of the 15 new branches will be in Gujarat. After achieving the distinction of being one of the few banks to achieve zero-net NPA, the bank will aggressively continue its recovery drive, the official said.

State Bank of Saurashtra has posted an impressive performance in 2003-04. Net profit grew to Rs 177.39 crore. Operating profit grew from Rs 286.63 crore as on March 2003 to Rs 452.76 crore on March 31, 2004, a growth of 57.96 per cent.

SBS has become one of the few banks in the country to have brought down its net non-performing assets to zero and this has been achieved through an aggressive recovery drive.

The gross NPA of the bank has been brought down by 153.91 crore (43.44 per cent) from Rs 354.34 crore at the end of March 2003 to Rs 200.43 crore as on March 2004.