Allahabad Bank In Plan To Prop Credit Offtake

Allahabad Bank has embarked upon measures to improve credit offtake through the broadening of its client base. The bank has introduced education loans for meritorious students who will be picked up from Indian Institutes of Management and Indian Institutes of Technology. The bank officials have made presentations in a number of IIMs and IITs which have evoked a good response.

The loan will meet the fees, food and lodging expenses of students against liberal interest rates. Harbhajan Singh, chairman-cum-managing director of Allahabad Bank, is confident of a good demand for the education loan which has been well received by the teaching staff at the IITs and IIMs. Bright students seeking admission in these institutes will not face any financial difficulties in completing their study.

 

The consumer finance scheme is another novel feature introduced to boost credit offtake. This is directed towards employees of corporate bodies whose needs for white goods will be met by the bank through advances against liberal interest rates. Already, advances to the tune of Rs 1 crore have been made under this heading.

The third proposal is a car financing scheme, which was introduced three months back. Harbhajan Singh said the scheme has become popular as is evident from the fact that about Rs 5 crore worth of advance have already been made against 220 cars.

Allahabad Bank, while seeking new areas for advances, has also decided to concentrate on a core group of stable corporate clients. This group will be sought from among medium and small-scale industries which are found to have stuck to the bank once creditor-debtor relationship is established. Further, Allahabad Bank is also seeking new clients in the agriculture sector.

Though credit offtake has gone up by Rs 215 crore in 1996-97 Singh is aware that this is a poor consolation for the bank. In 1995-96 there was a fall in advances to the extent of about Rs 170 crore. In order to build a sound credit clientele the bank has embarked on new schemes. More such schemes may come up in the near future.