Bank of Baroda to open new 900 branches; recruit 7,500

Public sector Bank of Baroda (BoB) plans to open 900 branches across the country by the end of fiscal 2011-12 and will come up with nine overseas in the next six months.

"Of the domestic branches, 400 will be opened before March 31, 2011 and the remaining 500 in 2011-12," BoB Chairman and Managing Director M D Mallya said.

With this, the total number of branches will go up to 4,000 with a footprint in all the states and Union Territories of the country, he told PTI at a credit camp in Padra town, about 20km here.

A sum of Rs 30 crore was disbursed amongst more than 789 beneficiaries of various schemes at the credit camp, Mallya said.

At present, BoB, with more than 3,101 domestic branches (713 in Gujarat) and 81 overseas offices/branches, is a great force to reckon with in the banking industry, he said.

The government lender is also planning to open nine branches abroad in the next six months, the CMD said, adding these will come up in Kenya, Botswana, Uganda and UAE.

All the BoB branches abroad are operating on a common technology along with human touch, making the lender a very different entity from other banks, he stated.

To manage its expanding operations, the bank is mulling to appoint 7,500 employees in around two years, Mallya said.

"Recruitment of 4,000 employees will take place before March 31, 2011 and the remaining 3,500 in the next fiscal year," Mallya said.

"The global financial crisis of 2008 had not impacted the bank. On the other hand, it had spurred the bank to grow its international business operations."

As part of financial inclusion programme, BoB proposes to cover 2,893 villages across the country by March 2012. Of these, 734 villages are located in Gujarat, the CMD said.

Under the programme, the bank will provide smart cards to the villagers for executing their banking transactions.

Mallya said the bank hiked its interest rates on deposits to tackle liquidity crunch, which is expected to be over after the government starts spending on mega infrastructure projects.

The CMD said he hoped to increase the bank's growth rate by 0.5 per cent, taking it to 4.5 per cent, by initiating measures to reduce expenditure and increase revenue.