JOIN USUnion Bank to focus on foreign exchange in M'luru
Tapping on the growing export market in the coast, the Union Bank of India (UBI) is planning to foray into foreign exchange.
Rajkiran Rai G, managing director and chief executive officer (CEO) of the bank, announcing this to the media during an interaction on Saturday here.
He said, “Plans are afoot to give a ‘B’ category licence to open a branch in the city to provide foreign exchange related services in another two to three months. The foreign exchange, that is currently in the focus, follows the interest evinced by two to three parties in this regard.”
Saying that there is no specific plan as such for Mangaluru region for now, Rai, who also hails from the same region, however, did not deny the possibilities in the future, as he had convened a meeting of prominent traders later in the day.
Recovery App
On the other hand, Rai said, “Going with the changing times, with technology-driven banking assuming greater significance than traditional banking services, a ‘Recovery App’ has been launched to check the growing number of non-performing assets (NPA) The app, launched a week ago, enables the personnel to easily access the location of borrowers and their assets through Google mapping. It comes in handy even when new staff members take charge. However, it is strictly restricted for the bank personnel, with a greater focus on lending up to Rs five crore. Such amount of loans to Rs 9,000 crore is expected to be recovered with the help of the new service, against the total target of Rs 37,000 crore, that includes advances up to Rs 50 crore and above.”
That apart, it has been decided to introduce 1.5 lakh Aadhaar pay-enabled machines during the ongoing fiscal. “The machines, cheaper than point of sales (POS) machines, have been already introduced on a sample basis in metropolitan cities. Each branch will be having 100 such machines, mostly focusing on merchant class,” he added.
50K POS machines
Not to ignore the thrust on digital banking engendered after the demonetisation of high-value currency notes introduced in November last, Rai said, “Up to 30,000 more POS machines were added, post-scrapping of such notes taking the total number of machines to 50,000.”
On the merger of banks, Rai, who denied any specific proposal in the making, highlighted the reasons that will eventually turn it into a reality, mostly depending on the potential growth factors.