JOIN USVijaya Bank to open 100 more branches
Bengaluru-based public sector lender Vijaya Bank is embarking on network expansion pan-India, and it wants to add 100 more branches this calendar year, a top official said on Thursday.
Talking to Deccan Herald on the sidelines of the inauguration of Vijaya Bank’s 1,600th branch here at Babusapalya (Kalyan Nagar), its Managing Director and CEO Kishore Sansi said, “We propose to open 100 branches this calendar year. It’s a pan-India expansion...we see potential in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, where we have comparatively little presence. Wherever the economy is improving...we would like to partner with that state.”
“Vijaya Bank is no longer a Karnataka-centric bank, because we have 28 branches in the North-east, close to 40 branches in Punjab and Haryana, and 80 branches in the Delhi/NCR region. We have regional offices in Kolkata and Lucknow. We are planning to add more branches in such areas so that our presence is felt more,” Sansi said.
With 526 branches in Karnataka and 86 in Bengaluru, out of 1,600 branches nationwide, the bank aims to have better reach in rest of India.
On employment generation, Sansi said, “We have about 1,900-plus new manpower is coming to us at various cadres, out of which 959 will be officers. They will join us from the first week of May. The bank’s total staff strength is 13,686.”
The bank’s total deposits stood at Rs 1,25,000 crore and advances at Rs 83,000 crore, taking the total business to Rs 2,08,000 crore. “With every 100 new branches, the bank gains Rs 15,000 crore more of business — nearly Rs 10,000 crore of deposits and Rs 5,000 crore of advances — and close to 10 lakh new customers. The bank aims to add 1.5 million new customers by this calendar year,” Sansi said.
Sansi claims that the bank’s USP (unique selling proposition) is having the youngest workforce among public sector banks. “The average age of a Vijaya Bank employee is 40 years and two months. We are having a special focus on grooming young executives who are joining us each year.”
On NPAs, Sansi said, “We have the lowest NPAs in the industry...Gross NPAs are at 2.89 per cent and net NPAs are at 1.92 per cent. Our endeavour is to reduce them further by March 2015. But I think there should be a reduction of 20 bps by the end of this year.”