Andhra Bank sets up Rs 1.3 lakh biz target

Public sector Andhra Bank has set up the Rs 1.30 lakh crore business target by the end of the current financial year.

The bank authorities expressed confidence to meet the target if the present growth rate of business is maintained, a senior bank official said today.

Total business of the bank touched Rs 1,17,899 crore by the end of December last against Rs 95,822 crore during the corresponding period last year with a growth of 23.4 per cent.

"Business growth is very satisfactory and we hope the bank will exceed its target if the growth rate is maintained," A A Taj, executive director of the bank, said here.

 

The total business of the bank at the quarter ended December, 2009 including deposits at Rs 66,547 crore (clocking a growth of 23.70 percent) as gross advances surged to Rs 51,352 crore with growth of 22.19 per cent. The credit deposit ratio stood at 77.47 per cent.

Stating that the bank is putting accent on agriculture, MSME (medium, small and micro enterprised) and retail credit, Taj said the finance to agriculture sector has gone up by Rs 1,767 crore over December 2008 and stood at Rs 8,252 crore by the end of December 2009.

Similarly, retail credit registered growth of 40.73 per cent over previous year and reached Rs 7,902 crore by the quarter ended December last.

The bank was focusing on housing and gold loans as the thrust areas under retail credit, Taj said adding lending to MSME sector has gone up by 53.02 percent and reached at 7,607 crore.

While net profit of the bank zoomed to Rs 806 crore for the first nine months from Rs 452 crore of the corresponding period last year, thus notching up a growth of 78.32 per cent, for quarter three end the net profit rose to 275 crore from Rs 213 crore, recording a growth of 29.47 per cent over the same period of the last year.

Maintaining its consistent performance on asset quality front, the official said the gross NPA reduced from 0.89 per cent to 0.87 per cent, while net NPA came down to 0.17 per cent from 0.21 per cent.

The capital adequacy ratio, an indicator of the availability of capital for future growth stood at 14.95 percent (Base II norms) against the Reserve Bank of India's prescription of a minimum of 9 per cent, he added.

On branch expansion plan, the executive director said the bank has planned to add another 10 branches by the end of March.

The bank has plans during the nine month period of this year, predominately in north and western parts of the country, to have a pan Indian presence.

With these, the number of branches of Andhra Bank rose to 1544 covering 23 states and three union territories, he stated. All the branches are under Core Banking Solutions (CBS) network.