Berhampur Co-op Bank turns 100

The Berhampur Cooperative Urban Bank, the second oldest cooperative urban bank in the country, has decided to celebrate its centenary this year.

The bank was formally registered on November 13, 1906 and it had started functioning from February 28, 1907.

"We are planning to celebrate its centenary with construction of a centenary hall and felicitating the old customers and directors", said the president of the board of the directors of the bank Deepak Patnaik. Giving details on the future plan of the bank, Patnaik said, the bank was planning to open four more branches in Berhampur. The area of operation of the bank is limited to the Berhampur municipality area only. The first board of the directors meeting was held on Tuesday after it was elected in the last month. In order to open the proposed branches, he said, the bank has to reduce its Non Performing Asset (NPA) to below 10 percent. At present the NPA of the bank stands at 15.8 percent. "We are trying our best to reduce the NPA by expediting our collection efforts and reducing the establishment of expenditures", he said.

Stating that the bank is making profit for the last three years, he said, the profit of the bank was estimated at Rs 12.20 lakh by the end of March 31, 2007 as against the previous year's profit at Rs 12.15 lakh.

While the bank was not getting any financial help from the government, Patnaik said, the bank's business is growing year after year because of the goodwill of its customers.

While the total deposits of the bank stood at Rs 21.21 crore by the end of June 2007, the total investment was Rs 12.70 crore including Rs 4.80 in government securities. The total loan and advances by this period was Rs 12.79 crore, he said.