Indore: ‘Trying to offer financial support from poorest of village to SMEs’

Indore (Madhya Pradesh): M Karthikeyan, executive director of Bank of India (BoI), has said that the bank is striving hard to offer financial inclusion and services right from the poorest man of villages to SMEs. To offer services to villagers, the number of business correspodents (BCs) are being increased, while, for SMEs, nine SME city centres have been set up in the state.

Senior banker Karthikeyan was talking to this correspondent on the sidelines of a customer outreach programme organised by BoI here on Saturday. He said that the bank was going to increase the number of BCs from 14,300 to 25,000.

“In order to offer better services, National Banking Zones have been set up and we’re also focusing on increasing the number of zonal offices. Their number has been increased from 58 to 69 in Madhya Pradesh. Talking about the hurdles that SMEs face in getting funds from banks, Karthikeyan said that BoI was trying to eliminate these hurdles. “We’ve set up nine SME city centres in the state, which will look after cases of SME loans and work to dispose of loan cases faster. Similarly, for farmers, 14 agri centres have been set up.

‘BoI recovered Rs 275 cr with the help of the IBC’

Veteran banker Karthikeyan said that, after the introduction of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) last year, BoI had been able to recovere Rs 275 crore. We’re getting a good response under the IBC regime. Our NPAs have come down from 13.77 to single digit.

Published on: Sunday, April 17, 2022, 01:22 AM IST