Canara Bank deploys employees to garner deposits, mobilises Rs 16k cr in 10 weeks

Mumbai: Faced with challenges on deposit growth, state-owned Canara Bank asked each of its 82,000-strong staff to go out to garner funds, and mobilised Rs 16,700 crore in ten weeks, a top official has said.

Amid the system-wide challenges of deposit accretion, the bank's top management gave a call to every employee to garner deposits, and the drive began on January 26 this year.

"We had given a call to each of the 82,000 staff members to canvas, contacting their relations and whatever there is in their circle. Each one should bring Rs 10 lakh as a deposit either in CASA (current and savings account) or retail term deposit," its managing director and chief executive K Satyanarayana Raju told PTI.

The staff members supported the drive wholeheartedly and are in "sync" with the top leadership, Raju said, underscoring that the management's actions over the last 2-3 years have helped in the drive.

"In the last 2-3 years, we have taken steps to get benefits to the staff members, bringing transparency in promotions, performance recognition, and transfers, which has gone well. When we gave a call, we explained to them properly and we could convince them about the need of the hour," he said, adding that the trade unions also responded positively.

Raju said the drive yielded positive results, and the staff was able to collect Rs 16,700 crore in deposits, split evenly between CASA and term deposits.

This helped reduce the credit deposit ratio to 73 per cent in the March quarter from the 76 per cent levels in December, he added.

He said the bank was on the verge of hitting the 80 per cent threshold on the CD ratio front, especially with the high demand for credit in the last quarter, and the urge to do something on this front led it to fall back on the employees.

Its reliance on the bulk deposits has also gone down because of this innovative drive, he said, adding that the share of such high-cost liabilities has decreased to 23 per cent from 25 per cent earlier.

Making it clear that this was not a drive aimed at putting up a high number on deposit for the period-end, Raju said the drive has helped the overall business, as there is stickiness in even the CASA balances.

It has helped the bank connect better with its customer base, and the benefits of the same will accrue in the future, the MD said, adding that the next area of focus will be to garner the monthly recurring deposits.