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Tamil Nadu
Interest rates may remain stable
| Says Chairman and Managing Director of Canara Bank |
“Inflation is under check, liquidity is adequate”
Awaiting nod to launch its insurance services
MADURAI: With the interest rates coming down worldwide, they may remain stable in India, Canara Bank Chairman and Managing Director M.B.N. Rao has said.
He does not foresee any upward movement in the near future.
“The central banks of the U.S and other countries have been talking about lowering the rates.
The inflation is under check, liquidity is adequate and credit off-take is not so high as it was last year. So, there could be a reduction in rates,” he told reporters here recently .
Mr. Rao, who opened a renovated branch and a coin vending machine, the bank’s second in Tamil Nadu and fifth nationwide, said Canara Bank was awaiting the nod from the Insurance Regulatory Development Authority to launch its insurance services, together with Oriental Bank of Commerce and HSBC.
“We hope to start issuing policies by the beginning of 2008.”
Welcoming the Reserve Bank of India’s proposal for sharing of Automated Teller Machines, he said Canara Bank already offered this service free of charge in some branches. The proposal would help to reduce transactions at the bank level.
As for the bank’s voice-enabled biometric ATM, Mr. Rao said it would help the illiterate people access financial services. At present, these ATMs had been launched in five States as a pilot, and the results were successful. “We have around 1,650 ATMs, some of which will be brought under the system. We will have 2,000 by this fiscal.”
Of the total advances of Rs. 12,900 crore in Tamil Nadu, the priority sector accounted for Rs. 8,000 crore, at 64 per cent. Agriculture advances stood at Rs. 4,300 crore.
Educational loans to the tune of Rs. 1,500 crore were given to 1.4 lakh students. The bank’s total business stood at Rs. 60,000 crore.
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