KOCHI: Andhra Bank will open 16 more branches in Kerala, including six in the Ernakulam district, as part of raising the total number of branches to 42 by March 2015, Andhra Bank executive director S K Kalra said.
He was speaking to reporters after inaugurating the Kochi Zonal Office and Kadavanthra branch of the bank at Jawahar Nagar here on Saturday.
He said that the bank would focus more on gold loan, MSME, tourism, real estate and housing loan in the State to garner additional revenue.
The turnover of Andhra Bank in Kerala is Rs 1,500 crore, with a growth rate of 19.11 per cent. The bank plans to raise the turnover to Rs 1800 crore by 2014-15.
“Following the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh, around Rs 1200 crore of agricultural loan given away by the bank have become NPA. The situation was worse in the first quarter of the current financial year, which is now improving. We expect to tide over the crisis by December. As of now, the bank has 2,192 branches and over 2,000 ATMs across the country,” he said.
“The bank targets an overall turnover of Rs 3 lakh crore by the end of the current financial year. Thus, we can join the league of large banks. The bank has 23 zonal offices across the country, and nine more will be opened by March 2015,” Kalra said.
“The bank has launched a new facility called ‘navshakti’. It is a customer lobby offering e-banking facilities, with machines like bulk currency acceptor, passbook printer, net banking kiosk, cheque deposit machine and ATM.
At present, about 40 per cent of Andhra Bank branches are headed by women managers,” he added.