Vice-Chairman and Managing Director of Girijan Cooperative Corporation Limited A.S.P.S. Ravi Prakash on Friday opened a Nextgen branch under ‘Navasakhti’ project of Andhra Bank at East Point Colony in the presence of the bank’s Executive Director Ashok Kumar Rath. The branch will have e-banking, transaction, and personal banking zones. It will also have cash recycler machine that allows for deposits and withdrawals, and passbook kiosk at which customers can update passbooks.
Mr. Rath said a total of 200 branches would be converted into Navasakthi model in the country.
Circle General Manager A.V. Ramakrishna Rao, Visakhapatnam Zone Manager G.V. Lalitha Prasad, DGMs of Kakinada and Srikakulam respectively V.S. Seshagiri Rao and K. Uma Maheswara Rao participated.
Later, talking to The Hindu, Mr. Rath said that the bank, with 909 branches, had a large presence in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. Its presence in Odisha and Tamil Nadu too was good with 160 branches each, but expansion in other States was not much, he added. “Good banks have 35 to 40 pr cent CASA ratio. Andhra Bank’s lending is high in Andhra and Telangana. The credit deposit ratio is high but CASA ratio is low,” Mr. Rath said.
“We are also going in that direction and have technology products like RuPay card and micro ATMs,” he said.
On NPAs, Mr. Rath said they mounted because of the large exposure of PSU banks to infrastructure projects and their getting stuck owing to supply-related problems.
