Despite being in the news for all the wrong reasons in the wake of demonetization the third largest urban cooperative Bank in the country SVC Co-op Bank has registered a profit of Rs 125 crore, announced its Chairman Uday Kumar Gurkar during the 111th AGM held last week in Dadar in Mumbai.
ED and RBI were earlier, on its trail once it came to light that the UCB has a surplus Rs 500 crore in its account. This was when higher currencies were banned by NDA govt last November.
In the AGM the Board of Directors recommended a dividend at 12% p.a. on Equity Share Capital and dividend of 10.5% p.a. on Perpetual Non-Cumulative Preference Share Capital for the year ended March 31, 2017.
The bank’s retail advances surged to Rs 975cr from last year’s Rs 751.41cr. Deposits also rose significantly to Rs 3545.65cr from last year’s Rs 2834.23cr. The total business recorded an increase of 5.58% going up to Rs 23790.61 crore from last year’s Rs 22533.62 crore, according to SVC Co-op Bank.
Speaking in the AGM, Chairman Gurkar said Centralization is at the core of a Bank’s operational success in terms of increased efficiency and reduction in operational cost. This in turn, resulted in better compliance and competent customer service.
During the year 2016-17 the UCB claims to have several new features such as IMPS (Immediate Payment Service), a 24/7 funds transfer facility was introduced, SMART Pin for Debit cards, whereby a customer can set his PIN by visiting an ATM, etc.
‘Go-Green’ measure resulted in saving cost as well as time as also the RUPAY ‘International’ card was introduced, claimed SVC Co-op Bank. It also claimed that ASBA services will be soon introduced. Earlier, it started Privilege Banking Program.
Digital Banking Inventions were the main driving force in the year for the SVC as it laid emphasis on Cashless Options for customers including Debit Cards, Net Banking, Mobile POS, IMPS, RTGS-NEFT, SVC Insta Pay, etc.
Under SSP – Smart Society Program SSP launched last year, SVC has done good traction this year with more than 300 camps organised across housing societies, companies and educational institutions.