Bank of Baroda plans to spread in Karnataka

Bank of Baroda, on Monday, said it plans to further spread its footprint across Karnataka by beefing up its branches presence in the State from the present 71 to 100 in due course of time.

Briefing reporters, at t he bank’s new regional office premises housed at Nitesh Lexington Avenue, on Brigade Road, Chairman & Managing Director M D Mallya said the bank hopes to cover all the districts in the State by March 2012 with the branch expansions. In this regard, he said, the bank has been growing strongly in Karnataka and had logged total business of Rs 8,200 crore in fiscal 2011, registering a compounded annual growth rate of 32 per cent.

Further, he said, the bank, which was looking at growth opportunities in Karnataka, proposes to set up a mid corporate branch dedicated to help existing and potential entrepreneurs.

The mid corporate branch, he said, would finance business entities with annual sales turnover of Rs 150 crore to Rs 500 crore. This branch would be housed in the new premises, besides other wings of the bank in City such as retail loan factory, SME loan factory, corporate financial services and its M G Road branch to the new location.

The bank, which saw capital infusion of Rs 2,500 crore last fiscal, taking the government’s holding in the bank from 53 per cent to 57 per cent, Mallya said, would see further capital injection of Rs 775 crore before March 2012, which would take the government’s holding to 58 per cent.

Likewise, the bank, he said, has undertaken an ambitious business process reengineering project to transform the select branches into sales and service outfits known as Baroda Next branches.

Accordingly all metro and urban branhes would be converted into the new model in a phased manner. It would see over 112 branches in the country go the Baroda Next way in the initial phase.

At present, the bank has 87 branches and offices spread across 25 countries and this number is expected to touch 100 by June-July, Mallya said.

Overseas operations constitute 24-25 per cent of the bank’s total business. The bank will open branches in Kuala Lampur (Malaysia), Surinam, Uganda, Tanzania and Botswana and couple more branches in New Zealand and the UAE, while its representative office in Australia will be converted into a branch, Mallya said.