BOI to focus on retail, indiv-oriented offerings

With its total business touching Rs 4.45 lakh crore at the end of December, 2010, Bank of India will focus on retail and individual-oriented offerings instead of products targeted at corporates to drive growth, according to a top executive.

The bank has set a target to achieve total business worth Rs 5 lakh crore in the current year, Executive Director N Seshadri told reporters here last night.

The bank will focus on retail clients in the housing, education and agriculture sectors and is particularly keen to achieve 30 per cent year-on-year growth in the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) segment, he said.

The bank, which has sanctioned loans worth Rs 30,000 crore to SMEs in FY'11 so far, will enhance this amount to Rs 39,000-40,000 crore in the coming financial year.

To give a fillip to the sector, the bank has introduced four new products -- Star Contractor Credit Line, Star SME Auto Express, Star SME Liquid Plus and Star SME Education Plus.

Stating that the bank has set up five specialised SME centres in Ahmedabad, Coimbatore, New Delhi, Kolkata and Mumbai, Seshadri said the bank will increase credit for SMEs in the Coimbatore zone by Rs 1,000 crore, which will be financed within a period of one year. At present, the company's loans in the Coimbatore zone aggregate to about Rs 959 crore.

With licences in hand to open 360 new branches across the country, the bank will open 20 new branches in Tamil Nadu, most of which will be in rural areas, he said.

The bank is likely to establish a presence in Uganda and New Zealand and subsidiaries in Botswana and Canada, as well as upgrade its Johannesburg office into a full-fledged branch, Seshadri said.