AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

NT Bureau
Chennai, Jan 23:

        In a major overseas expansion drive, Canara Bank has identified 21 prominent centres across the globe for setting up branches/ offices. And it has a growth target of 18.74 per cent in global business during 2006-07 to reach a level of Rs 2,33,000 crore by March 2007 comprising Rs 1,38,000 crore under deposits and Rs 95,000 crore under advances.

        According to Canara Bank chairman and managing director M B N Rao, the bank's advances growth will continue to be significantly driven by agriculture, SMEs, infrastructure, industry and retail segments.

        The bank has planned to forge strategic alliance with domestic and international majors on bancassurance and mutual fund business during the current fiscal.

        During this fiscal, the bank has targeted to cover 1500 branches under Core Banking Solution.(CBS).

        On bank's score sheet, it had a global business of Rs 2,22,504 crore, up from Rs 1,75,092 crore as at December 2005 while deposits grew by 26 per cent to reach Rs 1,31,781 crore, credit growth continued to be buoyant at 29 per cent, taking net advances of the bank to Rs 90,723 crore. Productivity measured by business per employee shot up to Rs 5.04 crore.

        The bank registered a growth of 8 per cent in its net profit for the nine months ended 31 December, 2006 compared to the corresponding period of the preceding financial. It's net profit of Rs 916 crore is after making a total provision of Rs 991 crore, including Rs 356 crore provided for NPAs.

        For the third quarter, the bank's net profit was Rs 363 crore as compared to Rs 356 crore in the correponding period last year.

        Continued focus on prudent credit management led to further containment of bank's NPA. With gross NPA brought down by 15 per cent to Rs 1873 crore from Rs 2204 crore a year ago, gross NPA ratio declined to 2.06 per cent.

        Net NPA ratio also featured a decline from 1.20 per cent as at December 2005 to 0.96 per cent at December 2006. Bank's cash recovery continued to be robust, aggregating to Rs 653 crore during the first nine months.

        In the sphere of financial inclusion, the bank has already made a notworthy progress by bringing in 1516 villages under its ambit, covering 1.46 million households during the current year. Significantly, it has achieved 100 per cent finacial inclusion in the Palakkad district of Kerala State while for Devangere district in Karnataka, the extent of progress is almost 100 per cent.

        With continued focus on info tech application, the number of branches under Core Banking Solution has been further extended to 179 while ATM strength further increased to 918 spread over 379 centres.

        It is pertinent to point out that the bank has introduced several new products catering to specific niches.

        To step up the low cost resources, the bank launched HNI Savings Bank Gold campaign in Bangalore city branches wherein HNIs were offered valued added facilities.

        Interestingly, the bank has added 1.2 million fresh deposit accounts to its clientele base during the current financial, taking the overall clientele base to about 29 million.