RBI should extend the limit of home loans to be disbursed by urban cooperative banks as they lose out their customers to other banks offering home loans, said Suhas N Sahakari, Managing Director of Shamroa Vithal Cooperative Bank popularly known as SVC Bank.
He further suggested that RBI should at least raise the limit for those Urban Cooperative banks that are having more than 500 crore net worth.
Readers would recall that at the time of demonetization the bank’s books had shown figures not matching Rs 1,400 crore in demonetized notes it had received.
The CEO of the third largest Cooperative Bank of India said it was originally registered as a cooperative credit society in 1906 under the leadership of Late Shamra Vithal Kaikini and Late Rao Bahadur S.S.Talmaki. The bank has 198 branches with ATM facility functioning across 10 states. The bank has a deposit of more than 14 thousand crore, said Suhas N. Sahakari to this correspondent.
“It’s a unique bank in the cooperative sector as it is different from other banks with its board not kowtowing to
The CEO said “In the last financial year we recorded a profit of 125 crore which was recently audited and our gross NPA is below 4 percent. This bank has been consistently making profits in the range of of 100 crore for the last few years with 2,500 employees and a professional management, he claimed.
When this correspondent asked him about the issue of Income Tax burden on Cooperative Banks, he said “I think, on the one hand we ask for freedom for doing business in many areas and on the other we seek concessions from the government. We should stand on our own and compete with other banks. The bank of our size and scale should not ask for special concessions from the govt. he said.
Apart from triggering other challenges, demonetization had badly affected the bank’s capacity to give loans. However, the bank wriggled out of the situation by encouraging customers to use debit cards, internet, PoS machine transaction and the like, he said.
The bank with one lakh members has developed its own home grown software on CBS platform, he said proudly.
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