Andhra Bank is aiming to raise Rs 400 crore in 2007-08 to fund credit off-take, which is currently growing by about 25% for the bank. On the sidelines of the 2nd Banktech Congress in Mumbai, K Ramakrishnan, chairman and managing director, Andhra Bank, said, ?Our total business was Rs 75,000 crore in 2006-07 comprising Rs 32,000 crore as advances and the remaining in deposits. We will raise Rs 400 crore within the fiscal as tier-II capital to fund the credit growth.?
The bank is hopeful of clocking 24%-25% credit growth 2007-08 and around 20% in deposits. Ramakrishnan further added that the credit off-take was never ?very bad? for the bank. Currently, the bank has only 0.17 % net non-performing assets (NPAs) and the capital adequacy ratio (CAR) of the bank currently stands at 11.9%. At the same time, Andhra Bank is also planning to target rural areas which are based across wide geographical areas that are untapped, through the launch of 200 bio-metric ATMs by 2008-09, from just five now. Bio-metric ATMs are basically driven by the dual technology of performing through PIN numbers and thumb impressions, and also speak in local languages with different dialects depending on a particular region.
, enabling a vast number of illiterate customers from the rural and semi-rural areas to use ATMs. ?We felt that there was a huge market in the rural areas which was unaccessible due to problems of language and illiteracy, and so we thought of coming up with ATMs that could solve these issues,? Ramakrishnan added.
The bank currently has 1,328 branches, of which 750 are in the rural and semi-urban areas of Andhra Pradesh. It also expects to open 50 branches by March 2008, of which almost half will come up in Andhra Pradesh.
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