IDBI Bank's focus on retail segment

By Our Corporate Reporter

CHENNAI, AUG. 17. IDBI Bank is growing rapidly on the back of a retail driven strategy. The business thrust has been redefined to have greater focus on retail activities. Towards this end the bank flagged off one more major initiative by rolling out its first regional processing unit (RPU) here today, coinciding with the bank completing five years of operations in Chennai.

Addressing presspersons, Mr. Gunit Chadha, managing director, said the bank had built up an excellent management team to make it a performance driven organisation. The revamping of the technology platform had been completed and the next twelve months would be devoted to building products on this superior technology platform, he said.

Even with declining interest rates the bank could increase its margin to 2.1 per cent from 2 per cent. The average cost of deposits had come down to 8.6 per cent by June this year from 9.2 per cent in March and 10 per cent a year ago. The intention was to bring it down further to 8 per cent before the end of the current financial year, Mr. Chadha said.

The retail depository participant (DP) services business has continued to grow while steps have been taken to focus on building retail assets by introducing new products such as housing loans, car loans and educational loans.

Mr. Chadha said in the next 30 days the bank would announce a tieup with an insurance company for distribution of non-life products.

Mr. J. Venkataramanan, regional head (retail banking), southern region, said the regional processing unit had armed the bank with the necessary systems and structure to roll out new products in retail banking. The southern region with 13 branches and 21 ATMs had contributed 30 per cent of the bank's total business, he said.

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Section  : Business
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