Armed with a licence from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to operate all over India, Saraswat Co-operative Bank, India's largest urban cooperative bank has announced plans to hire 6,000 staff in the next five years to more than double its branch network in the country.
"The pan-Indian permission has opened up vast opportunities for us and we have decided to grow our branch network to 500 by 2016 from 216 currently," said Eknath Thakur, chairman, Saraswat Co-operative Bank.
"We will recruit more people in the
coming days to support the massive planned expansion. By 2016, we will have total employee strength of more than 9,000 as compared to 3,338 now. This year we will employ 1,200 people," Thakur said.
The bank, the biggest among India's 1,750 urban co-operative banks in terms of volume of business, currently operates in six states - Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Delhi-NCR.
It will soon open branches in more cities across India. The bank has plans to open 100 new branches this financial year, including 77 in the six states where it is now present. "The rest will open in the new regions. We are now an all-India bank. Among co-operative banks we are the first to receive such an approval from the RBI," Thakur said. With the pan-India banking license the bank has raised its business volume target to Rs. 75,000 crore in 2016 from Rs. 28,000 crore currently.
"The bank will now be able take rapid strides to raise the bar of its business-mix (total business). Earlier, we doubled our business-mix every six years, now we will be able to do it every four years," Thakur said.
Thakur said that Saraswat Cooperative Bank recently became the largest cooperative bank in the country after achieving business mix of Rs. 28,000 crore surpassing the erstwhile largest cooperative bank Maharashtra State Co-operative Bank with a business mix of Rs. 27,800 crore.
Due to restrictions imposed by the RBI, till 2005 the bank could not add a single branch and was restricted to 75 branches. By March 2009, it added 96 new branches by acquiring seven sick co-operative banks over a period of four years.
After the RBI lifted the restrictions to open new branches, the bank enhanced its network to 216 by March, 2011. Saraswat Bank also announced a tie-up with Reliance ADAG under which the Anil Ambani-led group will market a core banking solution developed by the bank's infotech subsidiary. "We have recently tied up with the ADAG through which we can sell our core banking software, 'Swift Core', to banks using ADAG's optical fibre network spread across the country," Thakur said.
Swift Core has been developed by Saraswat Infotech Limited (SIL), Thakur said, adding that an estimated 300 small banks across the country need to install core banking software as a compliance measure.
For the financial year 2010-11, the bank had reported a net profit of Rs. 212.27 crore compared to Rs. 119.67 crore, up 78 per cent. During the year, the net interest income grew from Rs 328.81 crore in 2009-10 to Rs 527.80 crore.
It had reported 10.75 per cent growth in deposits while advances grew by 24.45 per cent. Its own funds rose from Rs 1,270.37 crore in 2009-10 to Rs 1,473.49 crore.
The bank managed to bring down the percentage of gross NPAs from 3.92 per cent to 3.25 per cent. However, this figure is high compared to industry standards. The high NPA rate is the result of added weight of NPAs of the seven acquired co-operative banks.
Courtesy / Source : business today / mail today
"The pan-Indian permission has opened up vast opportunities for us and we have decided to grow our branch network to 500 by 2016 from 216 currently," said Eknath Thakur, chairman, Saraswat Co-operative Bank.
"We will recruit more people in the
coming days to support the massive planned expansion. By 2016, we will have total employee strength of more than 9,000 as compared to 3,338 now. This year we will employ 1,200 people," Thakur said.
The bank, the biggest among India's 1,750 urban co-operative banks in terms of volume of business, currently operates in six states - Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Delhi-NCR.
It will soon open branches in more cities across India. The bank has plans to open 100 new branches this financial year, including 77 in the six states where it is now present. "The rest will open in the new regions. We are now an all-India bank. Among co-operative banks we are the first to receive such an approval from the RBI," Thakur said. With the pan-India banking license the bank has raised its business volume target to Rs. 75,000 crore in 2016 from Rs. 28,000 crore currently.
"The bank will now be able take rapid strides to raise the bar of its business-mix (total business). Earlier, we doubled our business-mix every six years, now we will be able to do it every four years," Thakur said.
Thakur said that Saraswat Cooperative Bank recently became the largest cooperative bank in the country after achieving business mix of Rs. 28,000 crore surpassing the erstwhile largest cooperative bank Maharashtra State Co-operative Bank with a business mix of Rs. 27,800 crore.
Due to restrictions imposed by the RBI, till 2005 the bank could not add a single branch and was restricted to 75 branches. By March 2009, it added 96 new branches by acquiring seven sick co-operative banks over a period of four years.
After the RBI lifted the restrictions to open new branches, the bank enhanced its network to 216 by March, 2011. Saraswat Bank also announced a tie-up with Reliance ADAG under which the Anil Ambani-led group will market a core banking solution developed by the bank's infotech subsidiary. "We have recently tied up with the ADAG through which we can sell our core banking software, 'Swift Core', to banks using ADAG's optical fibre network spread across the country," Thakur said.
Swift Core has been developed by Saraswat Infotech Limited (SIL), Thakur said, adding that an estimated 300 small banks across the country need to install core banking software as a compliance measure.
For the financial year 2010-11, the bank had reported a net profit of Rs. 212.27 crore compared to Rs. 119.67 crore, up 78 per cent. During the year, the net interest income grew from Rs 328.81 crore in 2009-10 to Rs 527.80 crore.
It had reported 10.75 per cent growth in deposits while advances grew by 24.45 per cent. Its own funds rose from Rs 1,270.37 crore in 2009-10 to Rs 1,473.49 crore.
The bank managed to bring down the percentage of gross NPAs from 3.92 per cent to 3.25 per cent. However, this figure is high compared to industry standards. The high NPA rate is the result of added weight of NPAs of the seven acquired co-operative banks.
Courtesy / Source : business today / mail today
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