KOCHI: With Kerala accounting for a large NRI population, Punjab National Bank (PNB) was aiming to woo Non Resident Indians to increase its NRE deposits from Rs 300 crore to Rs 1000 crore this fiscal, chairman and managing director, KR Kamath, said on Thursday.
‘NRE deposits from Kerala at present are very small about Rs 300 crore and we are looking at increasing it to Rs 1000 crore this year’, Kamath told reporters in Kochi.
The deposits in the state constituted around seven per cent of the NRE total deposits. The number of NRE accounts in Kerala crossed 36,400. Bank has already initiated several measures to enlarge its services to NRIs, he said.
Kamath said they had ‘sufficiently good’ branch network of 140 in Kerala and they were also looking at re-positioning some branches. The bank would focus on Kerala and was targeting a 27 per cent growth from the state this fiscal, he said.
PNB would try to make use of the brand image of Nedungadi Bank, which had merged with it about 7 years ago. “We need to run a campaign for it in Kerala to say PNB was a local bank,” he said.
The Bank has launched a Special campaign for Credit Card and Mutual Fund business to leverage its presence in metro areas.
It was in the process of launching a travel card which can be used either as Debit or Credit card.
