After ICICI Bank’s proposed take over of Bank of Rajastahan (BoR), HDFC Bank is now looking for a south-based bank for its next phase of merger so as to strengthen its position in the southern part of the country.
However, the bank was yet to take any concrete step in that direction. Addressing the shareholders during its annual general meeting on Wednesday, Aditya Puri, managing director of the bank, said ?We may look at going for merger of a bank in southern part of the country. But, before we do so, we will have to prove the efficiency of the merger of Centurion Bank of Punjab in past.?
Secondly, there should be willingness of both the parties for the merger to take place, added Puri. One shareholder even went to the extent of suggesting the names of ING Vysya bank, South Indian Bank Catholic Syrian Bank and Federal Bank for HDFCBank’s take over target.
Puri said the bank was eagerly looking at making its penetration in the rural parts of the country through business correspondent or telephone banking models. The outgoing chairman of the bank Jagdish Capoor said there are 5-6 branches of the bank that have not got their break-even on completion of two years of their operation, he said. While the overall market opportunity in each of the bank’s three franchises-retail, wholesale and treasury remains attractive, the challenge for the bank is to continue to execute the strategy of balancing growth , profitability and asset quality in an competitive market, Kapoor said.