Nair: Firm stand

Mumbai, July 5: Dena Bank has drawn up a roadmap to bring down its net non performing assets (NPAs) to 2 per cent.

The bank will focus on aggressive recoveries and drastic reduction of slippages to lower its NPAs.

The bank’s NPA containment programme will be placed before Union finance minister P. Chidambaram tomorrow.

The finance minister has asked nationalised banks to adopt a multi-pronged strategy to reduce their bad assets so that the net NPAs do not rise above 2 per cent.

At present, net NPAs for 10 nationalised banks are below 2 per cent, while the sticky assets for six are slightly above 2 per cent. However, only Dena Bank and Punjab and Sind Bank (PSB) have net NPAs above 5 per cent.

In a recent meeting with bank chiefs, Chidambaram had said PSB and Dena Bank will be called separately to present their action plans on bringing down the net NPAs.

Dena Bank chairman and managing director M. V. Nair told The Telegraph that the efforts of the bank to reduce its sticky assets were boosted by the directives of Chidambaram.

“Our net NPAs have come down from 18 per cent to 5.23 per cent on March 31. We now expect it to reduce further to 2 per cent by the year-end,” he said. Provisional figures for the first quarter of this year show the net NPAs down at 4.90 per cent.

Last year, Dena Bank recovered loans worth Rs 226 crore, which is expected to go up to Rs 240 crore in this fiscal. Moreover, cash recoveries as a percentage to gross NPAs have shot up to 15.08 per cent from 8 per cent.

“We will also look at upgrading facilities and reducing slippages to bring down the NPAs,” Nair said.

These efforts come at a time when the bank is concentrating on the retail end through its Finmarts.

Euronet tie-up

Dena Bank today announced its alliance with Euronet Service India Pvt Ltd. Euronet provides electronic transaction solutions and offers outsourcing and consulting services. Under the tieup, Dena Bank’s customers will be linked to Cashnet, the shared ATM network.