MADURAI, “Micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) do deserve bank support and Indian Bank is working with various clusters to improve lending to them. We have 50 specialised branches, including in Madurai, for this,” said Padmaja Chunduru, Managing Director and CEO of the bank.

She was speaking at an interactive session organised by Confederation of Indian Industry here on Tuesday. “Indian Bank has survived despite various crises. It had gone down in the 2000s but later revived and is currently in its 113th year. As a public sector bank, we had been taking a prudent and conservative approach and that has indeed helped the bank,” said Ms. Padmaja. She promised support to MSMEs in Madurai zone in terms of speedy disbursal of loans.

“With regard to MSMEs, we have certain issues with transparency, accounting and information flow. Bodies like the CII should ensure making these aspects dependable,” she said.

“Schemes like the public sector bank loans in 59 minutes is a good platform for MSMEs and a loan of up to ₹1 crore can be availed. Indian Bank, despite being a PSB, has a turnaround time and in case of time-sensitive loans, we do give approvals on time. In PSBs, one issue is the last mile connectivity as we can’t have a huge fleet on the street like the non-banking financial companies,” she added.

She said that Indian Bank had a loan ratio of 42% of corporate loans and 58% of RAM (Retail, Agriculture and MSMEs) sector loans. “Out of this 58%, one third or 20% is MSME loans. Indian Bank has seen a growth of 15% with regard to MSME sector and out non-performing assets is 7%, which is manageable,” she said.

Chairman of CII Madurai Zone K. Nagaraj, vice-chairman Sathish Devadoss and other CII members were present.

Published On : 23-07-2019

Source : Daily Pioneer