PNB targets Rs 10-lakh crore biz by 2013: Kamath

The second largest public sector lender in the country earned a net profit of Rs 1,011 crore in the last quarter is plannig to expand its customer base from the current 46 million to 150 million by 2013, Kamath said in an interview here.

"The Bank has set up a target of Rs 10 lakh crore business by March 2013 and expand its customer base from 46 million to 150 million by 2013," Kamath said.

Most of the expansion will take place utilising IT, providing "seamless banking service," he added.

Kamath said the total business of the bank crossed Rs 4 lakh crore as on December 31, 2009. "The gross profit for the last nine months was Rs 4,994 crore and net profit during the period was Rs 2,770 crore. During the last three months we earned an operating profit of Rs 1,818 crore and a net profit of Rs 1,011 crore."

PNB has 4,894 branches now and it will cross 5,000-mark in a couple of months, he added.

The 54-year-old Kamath, who has achieved the rare distinction of being the youngest managing director of the second largest bank, has been instrumental in bringing in perceptible change in corporate governance of Corporation Bank, Bank of India and Allahabad Bank before he assumed charge as chairman and managing director of Punjab National Bank for five years last October.

Kamath, who was here to chair the board meeting of PNB International (PNBIL), said the global arm will shortly open two more branches, one each at Ilford and Wembley in Britain.

At present PNBIL has four branches in England--at Gresham Street in central London, Southall, Leicester and Birmingham.

He said the PNBIL has been doing exceedingly since the beginning a couple of years ago mainly due to the patronage extended by the sizeable Punjabi population in London.
The PNBIL will also open a "satellite" office or "deposit taking unit" linked to the Birmingham branch, covering 15 to 20 km of its neighbouring areas, he said.
Saying that PNBIL will not restrict its activities only to Britain, Kamath said, "as we go along, we will look at some other countries like Belgium, Germany and Switzerland, depending on feasibility.

"In terms of international operations, we have a bank in Nepal--the Everest Bank. When PNB took over the management of the Everest Bank in 1994, it had two branches and the bank was in loss. We have now converted it into a profit-making bank with 35 branches," he said.Encouraged by the success of Everest Bank, PNB went to Bhutan recently and started a new joint venture bank with 50 per cent stake called JagPNB which started its operation in January and the second branch started its operation in Thimphu this month, said the CMD Kamath.

PNB opened its first international branch in Kabul. It has two branches in Hong Kong and one branch at the Dubai International Financial Centre, besides a representative office at Almatty in Kazakhstan.

Efforts are on to take over a controlling interest in Dana Bank of Kazakhstan with 64 per cent stake, he said.

"We are looking at upgrading our Representative offices in Shanghai in China and Oslo in Norway into full-pledged branches.

Recently, PNB received RBI permission to open a representative office in Australia as well, Kamath said, adding "we are also at an advanced stage of setting up a subsidiary in Canada which also has sizeable Punjabi population."

He said the international branches have been in profit from day one and "they are doing very well."

Punjab National Bank International managing director SR Sharma said the debit card and Internet banking facilities extended to retail customers in Britain have turned out to be quite popular and on an average 1,000 new customers are joining the bank.