In an Interactive Meeting organised by Merchants’ Chamber of Commerce today, Shri T. M. Bhasin, CMD, Indian Bank assured the business community that the interest rates currently charged by the banks will be lower once the inflationary trend comes down which he expects to be around 6-6.5p.c. by March 2011.
Keeping in view, the growth potential of the eastern region particularly West Bengal , Shri Bhasin said that Indian Bank although based in the southern region, will now focus to expand its activities here with more number of branches. In West Bengal the branch network consists of 31 metro, 18 urban, 4 semi-urban and 12 rural branches with a business of 7200 crores. The bank has prepared a financial inclusion plan at all India for covering 1538 villages with a population more than 2000 and 4040 villages with population 2000 or less. It plans to provide banking services to 12.16 lac households in 5578 villages through various delivery channels. He agreed that poorer the people, greater the financial exclusion is and financial literacy can play a very catalytic role in ensuring financial inclusion for inclusive growth. The bank has covered 4637 villages across the country and opened 2-2.9 lacs no-frills Savings Banks account as on August 2010. On a query regarding expanding credit to MSME sector , Shri Bhasin explained that Indian Bank has given adequate care for priority sector lending and has achieved 44p.c. of its total lending against a target of 40p.c. of which 22p.c. has been given to MSME sectors. On implementation of Basel-III norms , he said that it will be implemented in phases by 2019.
Shri S.S.Beriwala, President, MCC indicated that rural India accounts for just 9p.c. of total deposits, 7p.c. of total credit, 10p.c. of Life Insurance and 0.6p.c. of Non-Life business. He also pointed out that number of persons per branch in the Eastern region stands at 19258 persons compared to 17,000 persons per branch at all India level and number of Savings account per 100 persons was only 50 against 133 and 104 number of accounts per 100 person in the Western and Southern regions respectively.
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