Central Bank of India to open 100 branches

"We are going ahead with the branch expansion not at the pace it was there in past it's more calibrated growth. Still we would be opening more than 100 branches this year," Central Bank of India CMD S Sridhar said.

Set up in 1911, the bank has a network of 3,563 branches and 195 extension counters across the country.

The third largest public sector lender in terms of branch network, Central Bank of India opened about 100 branches in the last fiscal and opened about 500 onsite ATMs.

As part of recapitalisation package, the bank recently got financial assistance of Rs 450 crore (Rs 4.5 billion) to shore up its capital adequacy ratio. The fund was transfered by the government on March 31, 2010 which will help the bank in extending credit to productive sector of the economy, he said.

Besides, UCO Bank and United Bank of India got capital infusion to the tune of Rs 450 crore and Rs 300 crore (Rs 3 billion) respectively.

This infusion will enable these banks to maintain a comfortable level of capital to risk-weighted asset ratio (CRAR)--a key indicator of the soundness of the bank--for supporting credit requirements of the productive sectors of the economy.