Dena Bank targets Rs 500 cr SME lending in UP

Bank has installed on-site ATMs in most of branches, intends to open 200 e-lobbies across India in addition to Cash Management Services

Public sector lender Dena Bank is targeting advances of over Rs 500 crore to the Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) segment in Uttar Pradesh during 2014-15.

In the last fiscal, the SME lending was a little over Rs 300 crore in the state.

“The domestic business sentiments have improved in the last quarters and since primarily SMEs supply to big industries, they are also charting the growth trajectory,” Dena Bank CMD Ashwani Kumar had told Business Standard here recently.

The Bank has planned to establish specialised NRI Branches, Retail Processing Hubs and SME Processing Centre across India for faster transactions and loan approvals.

“We are focussing on small advances to the agricultural and SME segments for increasing our lending portfolio and credit ratio,” he noted.

Dena Bank, which currently has 1,633 branches across India, would open 150-200 new branches in the current financial year. It is aiming to grow by 20 percent from its business size of about Rs 1,89,000 crore last fiscal.

In UP, Dena Bank would open 7 new branches to add to its current tally of 67 branches.

It has set a target of growing total business of Rs 5,000 crore in UP by 25 per cent in 2014-15.

Besides, the Bank has installed on-site ATMs in most of the branches, while it intends to open 200 e-lobbies across India in addition to Cash Management Services.The Bank expanded overseas footprint by opening its Representative Office in London in December 2013.

Under financial inclusion, Dena Bank over-achieved its target by covering 2,958 villages till March 2014 against the target of 2,768 villages.