Union Bank targeting 9-10 % deposit growth

Union BankKochi: Union Bank of India is targeting 9-10 percent growth in deposits and 11-12 percent in its advances over last year, a top official said on Saturday.

"The bank's deposits are expected to grow by 9-10 percent and advances by 11-12 percent this fiscal," Chairman and Managing Director, Arun Tiwari, told reporters here.

The bank has a total branch strength of 3900 pan India, and will be adding 200 more branches this year of which 15 would be in Kerala.

He said 3000 employees were recruited this year and were undergoing training.

To further strengthen its global footprint, the public sector bank proposes to operationalise a branch at Sydney and overseas subsidiary at London.

It currently has three overseas branches in Hong Kong, Dubai and Belgium besides representative offices at Shanghai, Abu Dhabi, Beijing and Sydney.

The bank's global business as on June 30, 2014, stood at Rs 5,35,824 crore with deposits of Rs 2,97,420 crore and Advances of Rs 2,39,404 crore, The bank had a capital adequacy ratio of 10.41 per cent as on June 30.

With regard to NPAs, Tiwari said NPAs were also due to stalled projects like power and cement. When economy is growing, projects would be back on track, he said.

Whether PSU banks were hesitating in offering educational loans, he said "the bank was not saying no to educational loans. We are disbursing educational loans."

The bank has 224 branches in Kerala with a total business mix of Rs 17,400.68 crore. Total deposits stood at Rs 8908.35 crore and total advances Rs 8492.33 crore.

In the Ernakulam region, UBI has a network of 65 branches with a business mix of Rs 7407.12 crore, he said--PTI