The Hindu Business Line : Vijaya Bank looking at biz alliance options

In an informal chat with newspersons here on Thursday on the sidelines of the annual general meeting of Vijaya Rural Development Foundation (a voluntary organisation sponsored by Vijaya Bank), Mr Valliappan said, "It is too early to say anything on this. We will look into the merits and demerits of such a move, and we are looking into that." He agreed that there are many advantages for customers in such an alliance.

Asked if the bank has identified any partner for this, he said, "I would like to reserve my comment on this."

It may be mentioned here that Corporation Bank, Indian Bank and Oriental Bank of Commerce had forged a strategic business alliance on September 15.

V-ADALAT

To a query on the response to Vijaya Adalat (V-Adalat) — a one-time plan for the settlement of NPAs — Mr Valliappan said this initiative was paying good results.

In V-Adalat, there have been occasions where the bank has recovered Rs 2-3 crore on the spot. Stating that the bank launched V-Adalat in July, he said each region has conducted four to five such adalats. The bank has 17 regions.

Stating that the bank's gross NPA is below three per cent and net NPA is below one per cent, he said, "We are hopeful of reaching our NPA level target and recovery target for this September end."

Towards target

The bank, which is completing its platinum jubilee on October 23, is aiming at crossing a business level of Rs 50,000 crore by then. It wants to achieve business levels of Rs 60,000 crore by March 2007, Rs 75,000 crore by March 2008, and Rs 1 lakh crore by March 2009.

Stating that the bank has done extremely well in priority sector advances, Mr Valliappan said the bank's priority sector advance has crossed 40 per cent of the total lending.

COMPLAINT REDRESSAL

He said that customers' complaints could be converted into compliments by redressing them in time. Both the Chairman and Managing Director of the bank and himself are very particular that the customer complaints are to be sorted out within 48 hours. If there is any problem an interim reply has to be given, and thereafter a definite timeframe has to be given for the redressal of the complaint.

The bank, which has 926 branches throughout the country, is planning to take the number to 1,000 by March 2007.

On overseas foray, Mr Valliappan said the bank has applied for licences to open representative offices in Hong Kong, China and Dubai. "We are going to apply for licences in Malaysia also," he said.

The bank is concentrating more on customer and counter service, he added.