Bhubaneswar: Corporation Bank Wednesday announced is expecting to increase its business to Rs 8,000 crore in Odisha over the next couple of years.
“At present, we have a business of Rs 5,000 crore in the state, which includes deposits of Rs3,000 crore and advances of Rs2,000 crore. We expect to increase our business in retail, SMEs, and agriculture,” DGM and Zonal Head of the bank, AR Raghavendra told reporters here Wednesday.
Executive Director the bank, Birupaksha Mishra, who was also present at the presser, said the bank has lowered NPAs from over 6 per cent to 5.71 per cent.
“Our bad loans totalled Rs 20,000 crore; last year we recovered loans to the tune of Rs 800 crore and expect to double recovery this financial year. At present, our net NPA is 5.71 per cent and gross NPA is 15 per cent. The previous year, gross NPA was 17 per cent,” Mishra said.
Birupaksha said he believes the bank will post profit in the first quarter of financial year 2019-20. On the the bank’s provisioning for NPA, he said the bank had provisioning of Rs 10,000 crore, which has reached Rs 14,000 crore.
According to him, the bank registered business of more than Rs3 lakh crore in FY 2018-19, which is Rs1.9 lakh crore of deposits and 1.2 lakh crore of advances. “We expect to register business of about Rs 3.3 lakh crore this fiscal. Advances may increase to 10-15 per cent,” he said.
According to officials, the government has given Rs 9,000 crore to the bank for recapitalisation in FY 2018-19. Also, the Corporation Bank board has approved withdrawal of Rs 3,000 crore from the market in FY 2020.
When asked about the proposal to merge Corporation Bank with two other lenders, Birupaksha said: “The news is not authentic. We have not received any official order about such a merger proposal.” Corporation Bank also donated Rs 3.38 crore to chief minister Naveen Patnaik for the benefit of the Fani-affected.