Deputy Chief Minister, D.K. Shivakumar speaking at the Karnataka Bank centenary year celebration function in Mangaluru on Sunday. | Photo Credit: H.S. MANJUNATH
Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar on Sunday, February 18, urged Karnataka Bank to grow bigger by acquiring other banks so that the undivided Dakshina Kannada continues to remain the ‘cradle of banking industry.’
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Speaking at the centenary celebrations of Karnataka Bank here, Mr. Shivakumar said for whatever reasons the banks founded in coastal Karnataka were merged with other banks, except the Canara Bank in the public sector and the Karnataka Bank in the private sector.
Responding positively to this, bank chairman P. Pradeep Kumar in his presidential address said Karnataka Bank could achieve this in about a decade and asked Managing Director and CEO H. Shrikrishnan and his team to work on the direction.
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Stating that he was not delivering a political speech, Mr. Shivakumar also asked Karnataka Bank to conduct a study on how to prevent talent drain from the coastal region. “As the representative of the government, I assure you that we will implement the report,” he said. The undivided Dakshina Kannada with its rich history, entrepreneurship, education and infrastructure, should continue to thrive and should not vanish from the National map, he said.
Attorney General for India R. Venkataramani suggested Karnataka Bank to open a research institute in banking studies. He also wanted Karnataka Bank to open branches from Kashmir to Kanniyakumari to truly become ‘Bharat Ka Karnataka Bank’. With strong regulations in place, the Indian banking industry has remained unaffected during any World economic crisis while the country was in a position to offer solutions to the World crisis, he said.
Pradeep Kumar said the two banks, Canara and Karnataka, remaining out of 22 banks established on the coast had their founder’s branches in Dongarkeri in Mangaluru. He recalled the contributions of founding chairman B.R. Vyasaraya Achar and former chairman K. Sooryanarayana Adiga to the bank’s growth. While there were 2.4 lakh individual shareholders of the bank, the institutional shareholding has grown to 37%, indicating market confidence on the bank, he said.
Mr. Shrikrishnan said the bank has made profits in all the 99 years, distributed dividends for 96 years and was the only private sector bank celebrating the Centenary in the region. The bank had initiated financial inclusion and priority sector lending much before the Reserve Bank of India made them mandatory, he said. It had even initiated the corporate social responsibility initiative from the beginning.
On the occasion, the bank released ₹100 commemorative coins, postal stamps, special postal covers, the Centenary souvenir and inaugurated 15 new branches. Karnataka Chief Post Master General S. Rajendra Kumar, bank Executive Director Sekhar Rao and others were present.