"Significant funds have been earmarked to upgrade the hardware and software in our front-office, mid-office and the dealing room. A top-of-the line software package from Reuters, `Kondor', which offers almost the entire range of investment and treasury related products and has built in risk-management features is being installed in the bank," Centurion Bank's recently appointed managing director, VS Srinivasan, told The Financial Express.

Of late, corporates are showing increasing interest in dealing in `third currencies' -- particularly in the G-7 currencies -- and in dealing in theLondon and New York markets. "To provide these services, we have been permited by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to keep our dealing room open till midnight and we are Sreenivasan said, adding that the bank will further increase its value added services.

"This restructuring will go hand-in-hand with expansion in our correspondent banking network and the depositor base. We intend to have more than 100 correspondent banks, both within the country and abroad, by the end of this fiscal," Sreenivasan said, adding that the Centurion Bank expects a 70 percent growth in its deposits this fiscal

The private sector bank prides itself in being among the first banks in the country to execute the Interest Rate Swaps (IRS) and the `Forward Rate Agreement' (FRAs) and is presently one of the very few banks in the country which are offering market-quotes for these instruments for tenures extending beyond 6 months.

"We are a daily market-maker in these instruments and have given corporates the opportunity to hedgetheir interest rate risks at the lowest spreads. This has ensured that even those corporates which are not our regular clients have been doing their treasury business with Centurion Bank," the bank's country treasurer, JM Harding said, adding that the bank is positioning itself as a one-shop stop for all financial products, including Mibor-linked advances to corporates.

"Centurion Bank is also pushing its retail business, particularly the ATMs, debit card and the two-wheeler finance. In the two-wheeler segment, we are currently financing about 5,000 units per month," Sreenivasan said, adding that the new generation private sector bank has put into place comprehensive risk control measures for all its operations.

On the non-performing assets front, Centurion Bank has set-up `remidial management groups' for retail and corporate business, to devise collection strategies and manage the NPAs.