Central Bank In Cash Chase
~~PINAK GHOSH

Tanksale: Funds pursuit

Calcutta, May 19: The Central Bank of India plans to raise Rs 2,000 crore in fiscal 2013-14.

“We are planning to raise about Rs 2,000 crore in the current year. This can ideally be either through qualified institutional placements or we can ask for funds from the government,” M.V. Tanksale, chairman and managing director of the Central Bank, told The Telegraph.

The state-owned lender had raised Rs 2,406 crore in the fiscal ended March 31, 2013 through the preferential allotment of 30.8 crore equity shares to the government. This raised the government’s holding in the bank to 85.31 per cent from 79.15 per cent. The bank had further raised Rs 500 crore through bonds last year.

The capital adequacy ratio of the bank, according to Basel II norms, stood at 11.49 per cent for fiscal 2012-13, down from 12.40 per cent a year ago.

The funds could be utilised to further strengthen the bank’s capital base in line with the Basel III requirements set by the Reserve Bank of India and for network expansion.

The RBI had issued the final guidelines for implementation of Basel III norms which are expected to be implemented in a phased manner by March 31, 2018.

According to Deepak Mohanty, executive director of the RBI, although many Indian banks are adequately capitalised in the near term, “going forward capital would become an issue”.

The RBI official said the capital requirement of banks would increase along with the growing demand for credit.

The Central Bank is planning to lower its share of bulk deposits in accordance with the finance ministry directive to 15 per cent. Bulk deposits are rupee term deposits of Rs 1 crore and above.

“We are aggressively looking to lower bulk deposits. We have reduced it from 31 per cent (at the end of March 2012) to 24 per cent (at the end of March 2013). I expect that by March 2014, we will be able to lower them to 15 per cent,” Tanksale said.

The CMD of the Mumbai-based lender said he was eyeing a 17 per cent growth in total business to Rs 4 lakh crore in the current year.
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 Courtesy: The Telegraph