Indian Bank Committed to Improve MSME Lending Scenario

Emphasizing that the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) sector needs “deserves” bank support, the Managing Director and CEO of Indian Bank Padmaja Chunduru said the bank is working on improving lending to sector and they have a total of 50 specialized branches, including in Madurai.

She was speaking at an interactive session organised in Madurai by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

Noting that the Indian Bank has survived despite various crises in 2000s, the CMD of the bank said it was later restructured and now it is in its 113th year.

Chunduru said that the bank has worked on speedy disbursal of loans and also promised to support MSMEs in Madurai zone.

“With regard to MSMEs, we have several issues in terms of transparency, accounting and information flow, she said adding that the industry associations can play a role in smoothening these things.

“For the MSMEs, providing loans within 59 minutes is a good platform and up to Rs.1 crore can be taken through public sector bank scheme. Moreover, being a public sector bank, the Indian Bank has a turnaround time and in case of time-sensitive loans, we give approvals on time. Last mile connectivity is the key issue in PSB’s as we can’t have a huge fleet on the street like the non-banking financial companies,” she added.

Further, she mentioned that Indian Bank had a loan ratio of 58 percent of RAM (Retail, Agriculture and MSMEs) sector and 42 percent of corporate loans. Out of this 58 percent, one third or 20 percent is MSME loan. With regards to the MSME sector, Indian Bank has marked growth of 15 percent and non-performing assets is 7 percent, which is manageable”, the CEO said.