The Hindu : Business : Canara Bank kicks off centenary celebrations

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Friday, Jul 01, 2005

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Business

Canara Bank kicks off centenary celebrations

Special Correspondent

Lines up a slew of products; to raise Tier-II capital

ONE HUNDRED AND GOING STRONG: The Chairman and Managing Director of Canara Bank, M. B. N. Rao (right), and the Executive Director, B. Swaminathan, at a press conference in Bangalore on Thursday. — Photo: V. Sreenivasa Murthy

BANGALORE: Canara Bank which kicks off its centenary celebrations on July 1 here with the Union Finance Minister, P. Chidambaram doing the honours, has outlined a series of activities, marked by a social purpose. Among them, the bank will be adopting a village in each of its 23 lead districts across the country and addressing infrastructure issues there with a total outlay of Rs. 5 crore.

Announcing the plans for the centenary year, the Chairman and Managing Director, M. B. N. Rao, said it would launch on Friday new products such as "Canrelax" (aimed at the senior strata of the society to offer assured consistent accrual of income at monthly rests), "Cantools" (scheme for artisans) and "Canproduce" (scheme for improving the income levels of farmers).

Other social endeavours of the bank would include institution of awards for people engaged in social activities; organising seminars on social banking; infrastructure development in identified government schools; construction of a centenary block at Sevakshetra Hospital, Bangalore; social forestry; solar lighting at select locations and the like. Mr. Rao said this was the bank's way of "paying back to the society".

Canara Bank, which began operations in 1906 in Mangalore with a share capital of Rs. 10,000, a fund created by the missionary Ammembal Subba Rao Pai, now had a market capitalisation of over $2 billion. It now has over 26 million customers and is among the top four banks in the country.

Mr. Rao said that with a branch strength of over 2,500, it had an aggregate business of about Rs. 1,57,300 crore. As of March 2005, its foreign business turnover aggregated Rs. 84,517 crore.

Apart from an overseas branch in London, a wholly owned deposit taking subsidiary in Hong Kong, a joint venture bank — Commercial Bank of India in Moscow — and a representative office in Shanghai, the bank also manages two exchange houses in the Gulf and has rupee drawing arrangements with 20 exchange houses in the Middle East.

Mr. Rao announced that the bank would go in for Tier II capital during the current financial year, to raise about Rs. 400 crore.

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