The banking sector in India remains robust, and is well prepared to face any future shocks in the economy, according to P. Nanda Kumaran, Managing Director, State Bank of Travancore (SBT), an associate of State Bank of India.
Addressing presspersons here, he said State Bank of Travancore had done significantly well in the year ended March 31, 2013.
On the merger of the associate banks with State Bank of India (SBI), Mr. Kumaran said the issue was still at the drawing board level. SBI might take a call in July on this issue, he added. Though SBI had earlier completed the merger of two of its associates, namely State Bank of Indore and State Bank of Sourashtra, the other five associates had larger balance sheets and lot of issues had to be sorted out, he said.
However, SBT would continue with its expansion programme by opening more branches and recruiting staff. The bank had started the process of recruiting 2,500 employees, out of which 500 were from Tamil Nadu.
The bank opened 134 new branches during the last financial year, taking the total number to 1013, with 758 branches in Kerala. Out of the balance, 137 were located in Tamil Nadu, Mr. Kumaran said.
The plan was to open 200 more branches pan-India in the current financial year.
The bank inaugurated its third network office in Chennai and a regional office in Madurai.
