The Visakhapatnam Cooperative Bank has recorded a total business of Rs 5,918 crore (Deposits Rs 3,539 crores and Advances Rs 2,378 crs) at the end of 31st March 2020 with a growth of Rs 668.68 crores of business, claimed a press release issued by the UCB.
The share capital of the bank has grown from Rs 215 crore in 2018-19 to Rs 241 crore in 2019-20 and the members of the bank have risen from 82229 in 2018-19 to 87863 members in 2019-20, the release read.
Known popularly as VCB, the bank started its banking services way back in 1916 and now the bank has grown as one of the largest Cooperative Urban Banks in the country.
The Bank is having a spread of its branches in all the districts of Andhra Pradesh and in Hyderabad of Telangana State. As on 31.03.2020 the bank is serving its customers through 50 branches in both states and 20 onsite ATMs.
Following the latest RBI guidelines on NPA classification, the bank was able to restrict the Net NPA at 3.95 % amid the COVID – 19 pandemic prevailing in the country and the National Lock- Down.
“After the announcement of All India lockdown for 21 days by the Hon’ble Prime Minister and categorising banking as one of essential services during the lockdown period, banking is having all its 50 branches and 20 ATMs working continuously”, claimed VCB’s Chief Executive Officer, P V Narasimha Murthy.
“The work hours are reduced by 2 hours. All the 20 ATMs are working 24/7 without break since the inception of lockdown. The branches are working with a manpower of 50 percent”, he underlined.
The advances and NPA of the bank are hit severely due to which NPA has shown negative growth compared to 2018-19 and in the same way many approved advances were not taken by the customers out of the COVID 19 fear, which showed a drop in the advances in the last 2 weeks of March 2020, rued the CEO.