Chennai-based public sector lender Indian Bank is looking to end FY24 with a credit growth of 10-12% and is on track to achieve the recovery target of Rs 8,000 crore for the current fiscal, managing director and chief executive officer SL Jain said on Thursday.
Speaking to select mediapersons, Jain said during the last nine months, the bank has been able to keep the momentum going on both deposits and advances fronts. “In the last nine months, our deposits have grown 10% against our target of 8-10%. Similarly, advances’ growth stood at 13% against our target of 10-12%. The bank is in a better position and would like to close the fiscal with a 10-12% credit growth,” he said.
Jain said that recoveries in FY24 till date were more than the slippages. The bank had set an initial target to recover Rs 8,000 crore. “Every quarter, we recovered about Rs 2,000 crore. Till date, the bank has recovered over Rs 6,700 crore and is hopeful of achieving its recovery target of Rs 8,000 crore,” he added.
He said the bank’s aim was to keep the gross and net non-performing assets below 5% and 1%, respectively, and the public sector lender had already achieved it. Going forward, the bank will focus on three areas – digitalisation, human resources and business growth.
Jain said the value of digital transactions rose from Rs 23,000 crore in Q2 to Rs 52,000 crore in Q3, and the bank was planning to hit Rs 70,000 crore by Q4. The bank will be incurring expenses of Rs 220 crore over a period of three years to upgrade its cybersecurity infrastructure.
The bank’s proposed wholly-owned subsidiary will largely focus on back-office processing, collection, sales and marketing, he said. “We received approval from RBI last week. It will be a wholly-owned subsidiary. We will be putting in Rs 10 crore as capital and are in the process of recruiting people at the top level, like CEO and CTO,” he added. Asked about a timeline for the launch, he said: “Maybe in the next financial year, it will be in operation.”