Syndicate Bank ED Ajay Kumar Khurana stresses to aggressively mobilize CASA Deposits

Ludhiana, December 15, 2018: Ajay Kumar Khurana, Executive Director (ED), Syndicate Bank on Saturday visited the Regional Officer Ludhiana. He reviewed the performance of the regional office and the branches under Ludhiana region.
He emphasized the gathering to aggressively mobilize CASA Deposits and disburse retail loan such as housing loans, vehicle and MSME loans. He also instructed all the staff members to extend best customer service across the counters to develop the branch business as a whole. He also advised the staff members for upgradation of soft NPAs and closure of chronic NPAs and go for OTS (one time settlement) in eligible cases to improve the profitability of the bank. He reiterated that digitization should aggressively be popularized by marketing of delivery channels like internet banking, mobile banking and Synd E Passbook.
Addressing the gathering, he also advised the staff members to increase the advances by soliciting referrals from the existing customers through Synd Sales Saathi. He further informed that the bank is mainly focusing on less risk weighted assets for corporate lending and poised to turn around and make profit in the fourth quarter. He further informed the staff members of the reorganization of the existing zones/regions on the anvil. He added the bank has established recovery and resolution business units to strengthen the recovery mechanism of chronic NPAs.
The programme concluded with the performance review of the Ludhiana Region.
General Manager of the Zone Sudhakar R Iyer welcomed the gathering.
Later, Ajay Kumar Khurana also addressed the media persons and revealed that they were focusing more on improving customer services. The bank staff has been asked to remove discrepancies, if any, to enter improved services to the customers. Efforts were on to disburse maximum loans to MSMEs, he said, adding that finance to agricultural sector was also being increased. To provide services at the doorsteps, the bank was about to launch portal for MSME and Retail sectors. Besides, stress was being laid to further encourage digitization such as internet banking, mobile banking etc. He told that digitization of bank’s services would bring down the costs and ultimate beneficiaries would be the customers.
Replying to a question, Khurana told that NPA was big challenge for the banks. He said NPAs had eroded capital of the banks, resulting to which banks were suffering losses. He said they were trying to take all possible steps to over the present situation. He revealed that Syndicate Bank’s NPA was around 12 per cent at present.
To a question, he said bank branches had almost been doubled in the last two years in Punjab, adding there were a total 75 bank branches in Punjab. He also admitted that financial inclusion was necessary for progress of the country. He said banks had its own limitations therefore banks could not open its branches in every villages of the country. The post offices had a vast network across the country and if post offices were rendering banking services then it was good because everyone got its own space in the market. He categorically stated that banks did not charge anything extra from the customer as actual charges were recovered from customers.