Media Release

Mangalore, Aug 11: Health of credit portfolios on a durable basis without undue asset–liability mismatch is the key to survival, said Shri Ananthakrishna, Chairman, Karnataka Bank Limited while addressing Bank’s Regional Heads at the Regional Review Conference held at Mangalore on Aug 11, 2008 to review the performance of the eight Regions for the first quarter of the year 2008-09.

He briefed the members about the fast changing scenario in banking industry and urged the members to see that the Bank’s margin improves substantially in the wake of recent hike in Cash Reserve Ratio and Repo rate. Quality of advances should be maintained and there is no compromise on that, he stressed. Addition to NPA should be checked by constant monitoring and swift action should be initiated for recovery of tainted assets by recourse to all remedies available. Every attempt should be made to raise the share of Savings Bank and current account deposits in the phase of thinning margin. Priorities should cover areas like cost reduction by improving the share of CASA, rise in fee based income and drastic reduction of NPAs.

P. Jairama Hande, General Manager, welcomed the members and gave a brief account of the performance of the Bank for the first quarter.

P. Jayarama Bhat, Chief General Manager, highlighted the positive features of  June quarter and stressed the need for more efforts to achieve the targets under all the vital heads in the subsequent quarters of the current fiscal.

P.R.S. Holla, Deputy General Manager, gave a presentation on the achievements of June 2008 quarter.

Sarvashri G.K.Bhat, N.S.Chakkera and K.H. Shivaswamy Aithal (General Managers) spoke on the occasion.

Besides the 8 Regional Heads and their deputies, executives from Head Office were also present at the Review Meet.

K.V.Seetharam,Senior Manager,proposed a vote of thanks.