Union Bank of India will open 10 new branches in Jharkhand by September this year as it plans to have presence in each of the 22 district headquarters of the state. At present, the bank has 48 operational branches in Jharkhand.
According to the bank’s Tinplate branch manager S Arvind Kumar, eight non-represented district headquarters would have a branch each, while the other two would come up at other viable locations.
Union Bank, the first PSB in India to bring all its 2,514 branches under the core banking solution (CBS) network, is now planning to network all its 421 regional rural bank branches operating as Rewa Sidhi Gramin Bank and Kashi Gramin Bank in Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, respectively, by September 2009.
The bank has submitted a proposal to the ministry of labour and other central ministries to open accounts at its branches (after they were certified by respective deputy commissioners of the state’s 22 districts), in favour of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act and other beneficiaries so that money could get credited directly to latters’ accounts. At present, money comes to Ranchi first and then to the district headquarters.
“This service can only be provided by a bank which has a 100% CBS support as the system gives ‘anywhere banking’ facility to customers,” Kumar told FE recently.
The bank is presently conducting a countrywide survey to open 32 ‘retail asset branches’ within the current fiscal, one of which is proposed for this city. The branch will strengthen the bank’s existing network in the city by providing rapid delivery of loan sanctions at customers’ doorstep.