Syndicate Bank is planning to raise ₹4,500 crore this financial year (2017-18) to bolster its share capital base.
“The bank this fiscal is planning to raise ₹2,500 crore under common equity (CET-1), ₹1,000 crore under AT-1, and ₹1,000 crore Basel-III compliant bonds,” said Melwyn Rego, Managing Director and CEO, Syndicate Bank.
“Each raising will be determined by the market. ₹500 crore of Basel-III compliant tier-II bonds was raised on May 3 to strengthen the capital position of the bank,” he added.
“In July, the bank raised AT-I bonds of ₹450 crore. Now we are evaluating various options to strengthen the capital position through equity and Basel-III compliant bonds,” he added.
The Capital Adequacy Ratio (CRAR) (Basel III) improved to 12.30 per cent as on June 30, 2017, from 11 per cent a year ago. Talking about net worth, Rego said: “The net worth of the bank as on June 30, 2017, was ₹11,856 crore in comparison to ₹11,488 crore last year (June 30, 2016).”
To bring down interest cost, the bank has launched a CASA (current and savings account) deposit campaign with the theme ‘Customised for business, personalised for individuals’.
“During the August 1 to September 30 campaign, we will be targeting corporates. This is mainly to increase opening of salary accounts. HNIs too will be targeted, and we will also focus on new account acquisition,” he added.
In addition to CASA deposits, the bank is also aggressively pushing for housing loan disbursements. Post demonetisation, the bank has strengthened its digital banking. “As part of providing enhanced customer service, we have implemented ‘Green PIN Project’ which allows our customers to generate new/reset existing debit card PIN through ATM any time.”
The bank has also launched “UPI application for the iOS platform of mobile phones”.
Customers can use Synd UPI on iPhones to send and receive money. Synd UPI is already available for mobile phones that run on android platform.