Page 24 - Banking Finance October 017

CO-OPERATIVE BANK NEWS

CO-OPERATIVE BANK

NEWS
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Mavelikkara Taluk Co- Kerala's cooperatives planning to take on big banks
Kerala's cooperatives are planning to take on big banks by merging into a single
operative Bank sacks
bank called Kerala Co-operative Bank (KCB). It's a mas-
employees for fraud sive project and a first of its kind in India. If all goes as
Mavelikkara Taluk Co-operative Bank planned, 15 financial institutions (14 district cooperative
has banks and a state-level bank), which have branches across
sacked the state, will form the largest scheduled cooperative
three bank in the country. Together, the structure will sit on a deposit base of Rs 110,000
employ- crore, and hold 30% market share of total banking transactions in Kerala, be-
ees of coming the state's second-biggest bank, next only to State Bank Group.
i t s Partly controlled by the government, cooperatives in Kerala have a long history
Thazhakkara branch. The sacked em- of shaping a society where almost everyone has access to institutional credit.
ployees are branch manager Jyothi They handle an estimated 70% of the state's total agricultural credit, have a
Madhu, senior clerk Bindu G Nair and significant reserve of gold, and often hand out money to fuel regional develop-
junior clerk Kuttyseema Sivam in con- ment-for instance, they gave a Rs. 470 crore loan to build a metro service in
nection with financial fraud case. Ernakulam district.
The financial fraud of Rs 50 crore is Visakha Co-op Bank to open 50th branch soon
now being investigated by Crime Visakhapatnam Co-operative Bank Ltd, ranked among the leading 20 urban co-
Branch's economic offence wing,
op banks in the country out of a total of 1,574, is set to
Pathanathitta branch at the behest touch the 50 branches mark this year, according to Chair-
of the state government. The finan- man Ch Raghavendra Rao.
cial fraud case of the bank has come
At a recently held media conference, he said the bank had
to the lime light during the internal so far opened 46 branches in Andhra Pradesh and
auditing conducted by the head office Telangana, the latest addition being in Rajahmundry ear-
of the bank and the cooperative de-
lier this week. "We have received licences from the RBI to open branches in
partment following some complaints.
Vijayawada, Guntur, Atchyuthapuram in Visakhapatnam district and one more
The bank authorities said that three in Hyderabad," he said. "With the addition of the four in the coming months, we
employees were sacked based on the will touch the 50 mark, a target which we set for ourselves for 2020."
report of three member sub -com- He said the 100-year-old bank, with a deposit base of Rs. 2,531.56 crore and
mittee constituted by the bank with loans of Rs. 1,737.22 crore, was rated to be the foremost urban co-operative
Kallumala Rajan as the chairman to bank in South India and it was maintaining a healthy growth rate, though at
probe the financial fraud. present the banking sector as a whole was passing through a critical phase.

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