New Delhi: Central Bank of India plans to open 150 branches across the country and also increase its headcount by about 1,400 during the ongoing fiscal to meet its growth target, the bank MD and CEO Kalyan Kumar said.
The bank currently has 4,585 branches across all 28 states and six of the seven Union Territories. About 65 per cent of the bank's branches are in rural and semi-urban areas of the country.
"As far as branch expansion is concerned, we are going to open about 150 branches in the current fiscal and for which we have obtained approval from the board," he told PTI in an interview.
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Speaking on human resources argumentation, Kumar said, human asset is the most important driver of business and the bank is going to add a good number of officers and employees to help in achieving Central Bank of India's targets.
The Mumbai-based lender has a total staff strength of about 34,000. Of this 21,000 are officers and remaining are in clerical cadre.
Talking about plans for the current financial year, he said the bank intends to hire about 1,000 Probationary Officers, 300 marketing officers, 50 forex officers and 15 AGM level officers in the area of risk management, forex and treasury.
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The bank recently onboarded 1,000 credit officers to give push to quality credit underwriting, he said, adding, these officers are currently undergoing a rigorous training process.
Asked about revamp plans of Central Bank of India's subsidiaries, he said, the bank has two entities--Centbank Financial Services Ltd (CFSL), Cent Bank Home Finance Limited (CBHFL).
CFSL is wholly-owned subsidiary while the bank has 64 per cent stake in housing finance entity.
"We are strengthening the team in CBHFL and we have sent our General Manager as head and also 3-4 senior officers to improve governance and business," he said.
CFSL, which is in the trusteeship business, is actually a core strength of this organisation, he said, adding, "We are working with our team members so that these subsidiaries can really achieve their potential. We are confident decent growth in these subsidiaries would be visible with the changes made this year."
In a bid to expand international banking business, Central Bank of India is all set to operationalise IFSC Banking Unit (IBU) at GIFT City in Gandhinagar in the first week of next month.
The bank has received regulatory approvals from the Reserve Bank of India and the International Financial Services Centres Authority (IFSCA) to set up an IBU, he said.
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The public sector lender has already posted a branch head and groundwork is in progress there, according to Kumar.
"We would be in a position to open our IBU branch by the first week of next month. The bank would certainly mobilise a good amount of forex business," he said. Emphasising that the opening of IBU will be a significant milestone in the bank's growth story, Kumar said, this will help expand international banking business and also enable the Central Bank of India to provide specialised banking services to customers.
The IBU will provide the bank access to international financial markets and allow it to deliver a complete range of products to its corporate clients with foreign currency funding requirements, Kumar said.
The bank will offer a suite of services, including foreign currency loans, trade finance solutions, treasury and risk management products, and enhanced convenient banking solutions to its customers, he added.
