Corporation Bank, on Monday, indicated that its asset quality would be better for the third quarter of current fiscal with lower slippages for the period. The Mangalore-headquartered PSU bank also said a strong retail focus was aiding the performance of the bank.
The bank saw some deterioration in its asset quality during the second quarter of this fiscal with higher slippages. However, its third quarter numbers, which will be announced shortly, are expected to be better and slippages of advances are forecast to be lower than the previous quarter’s number of Rs.1,180 crore. “We increased follow up efforts for recovery of dues, and the December quarter will have much lesser slippages than in September quarter,” S R Bansal, Chairman & Managing Director, Corporation Bank, said after launching bank’s SME (small and medium enterprise) loan centre here.
He said the bank would continue to focus on boosting businesses across retail, SME and agriculture segments. “All the three segments have been growing by over 30 per cent. Retail is presently accounting for 15 per cent of our portfolio, and we intend to increase the share to 25 per cent in the next one year,” he added. To support the growth plan, the bank has been opening more retail and SME loan centres as also agriculture hubs.
“Our interest rate of 10.65 per cent for vehicle loan is among the lowest rates in the country, while our home loan rate is also competitive at 10.25 per cent,” he added.
The bank’s SME centres have sanctioned a total loan to the tune of Rs.2,991 crore during April-December 2013. SME portfolio of the bank stood at Rs.23,069 crore as on December 31, 2013.
