Kochi, October 4, 2004
PTI
Public-sector Union Bank of India plans to acquire new banks and had
held discussions with some merchant banks, a top bank official has said.
Though UBI had not yet identified any banks for takeover, talks had
been held with some merchant banks, its executive director K Ratnakar
Hegde told reporters late on Sunday.
"Today what is being talked about is merger of
strong banks. It is purely depended on availability and no timeframe
has been fixed for mergers or takeovers by the bank," he said.
Union Bank, which does not have a presence abroad, is
also keen to open branches in the Gulf countries, especially due to
the presence of a large NRI population.
The bank is targeting a profit of Rs 1000 crore this
fiscal, against last year's profit of Rs 700 crore.
To help the unemployed youth and women in rural areas,
the bank had plans to open 11 more rural development and training institutes
in the country.
While the first such centre was opened at Kothamangalam
in Kerala's Ernakulam district two days ago, the next would be set up
at Varanasi, he said.
Giving the current year's business figures, Hegde said
the bank expects to touch a business (deposits and credits) worth Rs
1 lakh crore. It had already reached Rs 92,000 crore by September this
year against last year's volumes of Rs 80,000 crore.