Bank of Maharashtra (BoM) is planning to open nine branches in five districts across Telangana by March as part of its emphasis on sharpening focus on the State.
“Telangana is where we see good business opportunity. Hyderabad is known for IT, pharma... lot of infrastructure is being developed,” Executive Director A.B. Vijayakumar said, adding the branch expansion is in line with BoM’s stress on having a branch in each district of the country.
“We have got 38 branches in Telangana, of which 19 are in Hyderabad. We are yet to open a branch in 17 districts... plan to open at least 9 branches in five districts by March 2022,” he said during his visit to the city recently.
Driving the decision is a robust, 50% growth BoM’s Hyderabad zone is on course to clock this fiscal thereby reaching, if not surpassing, the business level it had before Vijayawada zone was carved out. With the creation of the Vijayawada zone, by carving 25 branches in Andhra Pradesh, the Hyderabad zone’s business had reduced from ₹12,121 crore to around ₹8,000 crore, he said. “There is good support from our existing customers. We are getting support from the State government for good projects where cash flows are there. It is a win-win situation for both government and the bank to work in tandem,” he said.
Inauguration
In Hyderabad, Mr. Vijayakumar participated in inauguration of a new corporate finance branch (CFB) by Special Chief Secretary for Irrigation to Telangana government Rajat Kumar and made a courtesy call on Finance and Health Minister Harish Rao. The Minister spoke of the State government plan for a multispeciality hospital in Warangal and wanted BoM to be a partner. “We are keen and will take it up to the Board,” he said.
BoM, which recently opened its 2,000th branch in Tirumala, is pursuing plans to open 150 branches across the country this fiscal. “We have opened 86 branches so far. Of the 64 remaining, 24 are to be opened by December and the rest by March,” he said.
Besides network expansion, BoM is eyeing more growth through a combination of strategies, including opening of focused verticals such as corporate finance branches, setting up centralised processing centre for retail and MSME customers, having business development officers as well as containing slippage and improving recovery by strengthening the asset recovery branches. On the operation side, “we are focusing on reducing cost,” he said, adding the emphasis is also on utilising digital banking tools.
