KOZHIKODE: Giving a major fillip to its business expansion plans, the Kozhikode District Cooperative Bank (KDCB) has received the NRE (Non-resident External) licence from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), enabling it to provide banking services to expatriates.
With this, Kozhikode District Cooperative Bankhas become the only district cooperative bank in the state to have the facility.
Though NRE licence was earlier given to the State Cooperative Bank and the Wayanad Cooperative Bank, both were unable to renew it.
All the 54 branches of KDCB have been given the permission to operate NRE accounts, according to KDCB president Manayath Chandran. “This is a landmark achievement for the bank. RBI has given the licence for two years and it would be renewed on the basis of performance,” he said.
Though the bank has received the RBI go-ahead, it will take at least a month for KDCB to set the ball rolling. “As we have no successful model in the cooperative sector, we will have to study the models followed by nationalised banks. Subsequently, attractive schemes will be launched for NRIs at the earliest,” Chandran said.
Kozhikode District Cooperative Bank had applied for the facility way back in 2012. It had to comply various norms including CRAR aka Capital adequacy ratio of more than 9 per cent and bring down the NPA to less than 5 per cent mark.
KDCB Turnover Crosses `5,000 Cr
KDCB has crossed business turnover of `5,000 crore in the 2014-15 fiscal. The bank has done total business of `5,112 crore in the previous fiscal with deposits worth `2,978 crore and loan advances to the tune of `2,134 crore. “The biggest achievement is in terms of reducing NPAs. During the 2013-14 fiscal, it was around 5 per cent and at the end of the last fiscal we could bring it down to 3.61 per cent. Significantly, this has happened at a time when the bank has recorded a growth in the disbursal of loans and achieved a credit-deposit ratio close to 90 per cent,” KDCB president Manayath Chandran said.