City Union Bank's pilot robot to be deployed first in Chennai

The bank plans to deploy around 25 robots in its branches by end of this year

City Union Bank (CUB) plans to deploy robots in its branches, becoming the first bank in the country to do so. Japan's Soft Bank was the first to use a robot in banking operations.

CUB's Managing Director & CEO N Kamakodi said that the 'CUB-Lakshmi' humanoid is a pilot project to be deployed in the bank's T Nagar branch in Chennai.

Initially, the robot will answer generic banking related questions posed by customers. However, later it will be integrated with banking systems enabling transactions.

The robot that has cost the bank around Rs 7-8 lakhs can save work for 3-4 persons and will be integrated with the bank's automation process as well.

In case the pilot project succeeds, CUB plans to deploy around 25 robots in its branches by end of this year. The robots are customised verisons of models develpoped by a French firm.

Being programmed to answer a maximum of 120 customer questions, the bank believes that these robots will be taking care of 95 percent of their requirements.

Meanwhile, CUB has posted a 14.7 percent growth in net profit at Rs 123.74 crore during the quarter ending on September 30 as compared to Rs 107.84 crore during the corresponding quarter in 2015.

The company's total income grew 7.9 percent to Rs 894.9 crore as against Rs 829.5 crore during the same period last year.

The bank's gross non-performing asset (NPA) increased to Rs 597.97 crore, marking a 2.69 percent rise, during the second quarter of 2016 as compared to Rs 398.29 crore during the same period last year. The net NPA grew to Rs 358.60 crore (1.63 percent) as compared to Rs 255.93 crore (1.36 per cent) in 2015.

Kamakodi said, "The total business of the bank crossed Rs 50,000 crore during the second quarter, posting a net profit of Rs 123.76 crore. In a challenging business environment, the City Union Bank was able to maintain its asset quality and has achieved excellent results across all performance metrics. The Bank is looking to achieve a 15-18 percent growth by end of this year."