Union Bank achieves higher business growth

[sajiv]

KOCHI: Leading public sector bank, Union Bank of India, has done a total business of over Rs.2 lakh-crore as on date. Deposits grew by 25 per cent and advances by 23 per cent.The total business as on March 2005 was only Rs.1 lakh-crore, said M.V. Nair, chairman and managing director of the bank. Talking to reporters here on Wednesday, Mr. Nair said during the past 18 months, the bank had been on a transformation mission, changing the way the bank did business. The stress was on improving technology, the process and empowering the people, and these measures had paid high dividends as witnessed in the results, he said.

The bank had now migrated to core banking all the branches and the first 1,000 branches were turned to CBS (core banking solutions) in the first year, while it took only four-and-a-half months to network the remaining 1,500 branches. The technology provider, Infosys, had termed this as a "world record," Mr. Nair said.The retail business was also refurbished as part of the "Navnirman " (transformation) and the housing loan, the personal loans and other retail segments were brought under the centralised process.

Branches catering to corporates, industrial relations branches and overseas accounts branches which constituted almost 50 per cent of the total business from 20 branches were also brought under the centralised process. As many as 110 SME (small and medium enterprises) branches were also reformed which resulted in faster turnaround time and better services to the customers and clients.Sanctioning of educational loans was effected within a timeframe of 48 hours and if there was any delay, the processing fee was returned to the customers. This brought better accountability and customer satisfaction, the chairman said.

On diversification: The bank is on a diversification path and has already entered into a joint venture for selling insurance products. Mr. Nair said the bank had entered into a joint venture with Bank of India and a Japanese firm to enter into the insurance sector. Two crucial approvals have already been received and the CEO for the insurance company has been appointed.The second joint venture is to mark the entry of the bank to the Mutual Fund industry. A memorandum of understanding has been signed with KBC Corporation and the formal entry would come in about six months, he said.

The bank has also tied up for offering wealth management services. Two companies have been shortlisted for this purpose.The bank has also plans to go global and would have presence in ten global destinations within a year. The RBI has already cleared the move of the Bank to open a Representative's office in Sydney.The bank hopes to open an office at Beijing shortly. It has already two representative offices at Shanghai and Abu Dhabi, and a full fledged branch at Hong Kong.