Expecting to make an impressive profit in the current financial year (audit is underway) Maharashtra based Multi State Scheduled Bank Janata Sahakari Bank Pune is having its eye on a business mix of Rs 20,000 crore by 2020.
“The UCB also aims to reduce its NPA from 7 percent to 2 percent by 2020”, said its CEO Jayant Kashinath Kakatkar to Indian Cooperative correspondent in Pune. It bears recall that the Janata Sahakari Bank Pune is the 2nd largest UCB in Pune City and is figuring in the list of top 10 UCBs of India.
“Presently, the bank is having a business mix of about Rs 14,200 crore with 8,500 crore counting as deposits and Rs 5,700 crore as loans and advances. The bank is having a gross NPA of around 7 percent. We are confident, we can achieve the said target till 2020 as well as reduce NPAs”, Kakatkar claimed.
While revealing the financial strength of the bank, the CEO said the growth of the bank in 2017-18 compared to 2016-17 is commendable with excellent loan recoveries in the last fiscal.
“Business mix stood at Rs 14,000 crore in 2016-17 and now we have achieved a business mix of about Rs 14,200 in 2017-18. The gross profit spiked to 140 crore as against Rs 135 crore last year. The Bank’s gross NPA is below 7 percent and Net NPA is below 4 percent”, he informed.
The auditing in the bank is in progress and we are hoping to earn a Net Profit of Rs 45 crore in 2017-18.
Highlighting the hurdles the bank faces in scaling newer heights the CEO said “Rising NPA has become a major challenge before the bank and we are focusing to recover the loans and slow down the NPA. We are having competition with commercial banks and PSUs because they are entertaining customers with lower rates of interest but we could not give cheap loans to the borrowers”, he said.
Kakatkar said ”the government or RBI should not do discriminate against cooperative banks and give them facilities on the lines of commercial banks and PSUs. We have a different style of doing banking business and serving the common people” said Kakatkar who has been associated with the bank from 33 years.
The bank is having a total membership of about 1.8 lakh shareholders. It has 71 branches in Maharashtra and Gujarat and there is no plan to expand the bank’s business in the near future, he said.
Janata Sahakari Bank is having 5 off sites ATMs and two extension counters and around 60 onsite ATMs.
The bank has acquired five cooperative banks including Khed Brahma Nagarik Sahakari Bank and Choundeshwari Sahakari Bank facing financial difficulties. The bank has acquired the Multi State Scheduled Status with acquiring Gujarat based Khed Brahma Nagarik Sahakari Bank in 2012.
Recently the bank has launched Bhim Jet Pay app and is getting good response. So far, 3000 customers including non-banking customers have registered on this app. The bank is also active empowering the women and has launched a scheme with the title “Janata Women Entrepreneurs Scheme” on the occasion of International Women Day with an objective to provide opportunity to women to set-up new enterprises.
