Centurion Bank eyeing NBFC
Centurion Bank, which recently acquired Lord Krishna Bank(LKB), would be once again looking for an inorganic growth opportunity. Besides banks, Centurion Bank could also be looking to buy out a non-banking finance company (NBFC).
“Inorganic growth route is something that we have been doing. We are open for M&A play with either a bank or NBFC though there is nothing happening immediately. We are now busy integrating LKB with ourselves,” said Shailendra Bhandari, MD & CEO of the bank.
Mr Bhandari said that inorganic growth would help the bank increase its business volume. Currently ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and Axis Bank are ahead of Centurion Bank. For the quarter ended September 30, 2007, Centurion Bank had business volume of Rs 33,000 crore.
It would be pertinent to mention here that many banks have been eyeing the NBFC business, as operating matrices in case of the latter are more lenient compared to banks. He said that despite a slowdown in the industry, Centurion Bank had been registering growth in excess of the average growth rates.
“The only segment where we had muted growth in the September quarter was two-wheeler loans. In SME we have grown by 140% year-on-year while in case of retail loans we registered a 55% year-on-year growth in September 2007,” Mr Bhandari added.
Centurion Bank which got a network of over 120 branches through the LKB acquisition is looking at expanding its network largely in India. “We have secured the RBI nod for opening 20 branches in 2008-09 and are looking at moving into tier-II and tier-III cities,” he said. To tap into the NRI population in the middle-east, Centurion Bank is relying on its equity partner-Bank Muscat.
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