In a bid to improve its capital adequacy ratio (CAR), which stands at 10.02%, Central bank of India has a plan to raise Rs 500 crore through tier-I and tier-II capital bonds. Besides, the bank has sought permission from Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to open five representative offices abroad.
Central Bank’s executive director Ramnath Pradeep, told FE, “Currently we don’t any presence abroad. But we intend to open representative offices in Dubai, Singapore, Hong Kong, Doha and London. Our bank has asked the central government to inject more capital as there is requirement of huge capital for setting up base in foreign nation. Besides we are working towards improving the CAR of the bank”.
The bank which has 3,400 branches across the country has obtained the licenses from RBI for adding 190 new branches out of which 116 have already been opened and rest of the 74 will become operational by the end of this fiscal. Around 36 new branches will come up in Chandigarh zone, which comprises of Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir. Besides the bank will incur Rs 200 crore to migrate to centralised banking solution in about 1200 branches.
He further said, “The economic slowdown has hit export, small and medium enterprises (SME) sector, real estate, and automobile sector. Only agriculture sector has been spared and keeping this in mind we will push lending in this sector in agrarian states of Punjab and Haryana”.
Central Bank’s net profit in the December quarter grew 75.74% at Rs 353.26 crore over the corresponding period a year ago. Its total business touched Rs 2,00, 249 crore as on December 31, 2008 from Rs 1,55,972 crore as on December 31, 2007, a growth of 28.39% on Y-o-Y basis.
Total deposits rose from Rs 97,063 crore as on December 31, 2007 to Rs 1,18,782 crore in December 31, 2008, a growth rate of 22.38%. The executive director informed that net NPA ratio has declined to 1.18% as on December 31, 2008 against 1.22% over corresponding period a year ago.