Deal between Sri Lankan, Kerala banks

Thiruvananthapuram, March 28 (IANS) Kerala-based South Indian Bank (SIB) will Tuesday ink an agreement with Hatton National Bank (HNB), the largest private sector bank in Sri Lanka, to enable the exchange of expertise and
services between the two financial institutions, an SIB official said here Sunday.

"The memorandum of understanding (MoU) will be inked between V.A. Joseph, managing director and chief executive officer of SIB, and Rajendra Theagarajah, managing director of HNB, Tuesday in Thiruvananthapuram," the
SIB official told IANS on condition of anonymity.

"Once the MoU is in place, it would enable the customers of the two banks, wherever they are, to make remittances under demand draft drawing arrangements," he added.

SIB, which will close this fiscal with a business of more than Rs.38,000 crore, is planning a business turnover of Rs.48,000 crore in the next financial year.

"In the last one decade India has emerged as the largest trade partner of Sri Lanka, so our customers can now look forward for smoother trade-related business like issuing of letter of credits and also discounting of import and export bills," the official said.

SIB has achieved a credit growth of 30.47 per cent in the current fiscal and a deposit growth of 23.69 per cent, well above the industry average.

The bank recovered stressed assets to the tune of Rs.241 crore and, thus, exceeded the target of Rs.225 crore for this fiscal with a fairly good margin, SIB had said in a statement.

The gross non-performing assets (NPA) have come down to 1.46 per cent and net NPA to 0.39 per cent as of December 2009. In the next fiscal, SIB plans to open 60 more branches that will take the total number of its core banking service branch network to 640 in the country, it said.