State Bank of Hyderabad, the largest among the subsidiaries of State Bank of India, plans to focus more on expanding its footprint beyond Andhra Pradesh.
The bank currently has a total of over 1,500 branches, and more than 1,000 of them are in Andhra Pradesh, while the rest are in other States. “Our expansion drive is part of our move to concentrate beyond our traditional area of Andhra Pradesh, part of Karnataka and Maharashtra to other potential geographies with an intention of tapping business from those areas too, said M. Bhagavantha Rao, Managing Director of the bank. Last year, the bank opened its zonal offices in Mumbai and Delhi to extend its spread.
During the current financial year, it plans to add 16 branches to its network in the South alone. Out of this, 14 will be in Tamil Nadu and two in Kerala.
Rao was here to inaugurate the bank’s new zonal office facility here. The Chennai zone will include 41 branches in Tamil Nadu, seven branches in Kerala and one in Puducherry. The total business transactions of these branches are around Rs 5,600 crore.
Besides expanding its footprint, the bank also wants to focus more on MSME (micro, small and medium enterprises) sector. It has set a MSME business target of Rs 9,000 crore for the current financial year. “We have already done about Rs 1,500 crore so far, and are confident of going past the targeted Rs 9,000 crore by the end of the year,” he said.
The bank has reported a total business turnover of Rs 2,10,000 crore business at the end of the first quarter of the current year. It’s gross NPA stands at 4.5 per cent and the net NPA at 1.91 per cent. Its restructured portfolio is around Rs 2,700 crore by the end of June 30, 2013, and majority of them are from the textile and iron and steel industry.
ravikumar.r@thehindu.co.in