J&K Bank aims to achieve business of Rs 4 tn in next 5 years: CEO

Jammu and Kashmir Bank has set a long-term goal of achieving Rs 4,00,000 crore business in the next five years with annual profit of Rs 4,000 crore, a top company official has said.

J&K Bank MD & CEO Baldev Prakash said the long-term objectives are backed by well thought out strategies and monitorable execution plans that would be periodically reviewed to ensure achievement of all interim milestones.

Prakash said the bank is also working on short-term goals like fixing monthly targets for each business line.

"In the longer term, we have set out a target for ourselves to achieve business of Rs 4 lakh crore in the next five years with an annual profit of Rs 4,000 crore. We are aiming to bring our gross NPA to below 4 per cent with a net NPA figure to one per cent level. The long-term target for our Return on Assets (RoA) is above 1 per cent," he said.

Prakash further said that, "the broader objective would be to improve Bank's market share from 0.63 per cent to 0.75 per cent in the country, while maintaining the dominance in the UTs of J&K and Ladakh."

On the speculations about the bank's merger with a nationalised bank, Prakash said, "It's purely a figment of some wild imagination."

"With stronger fundamentals and improving key parameters, J&K Bank is moving ahead on a sustainable growth path. We have already rolled out our short to long-term plans, whose results would be evident for all the stakeholders in the next 2-3 years.

"And all I want to say is that as the Bank flourishes to regain its glory, you would see all these rumours silently being laid to rest," Prakash told PTI in an emailed interview.

Speculations were rife that J&K Bank might be merged with a larger bank like the State Bank of India in the wake of arrest for former chairman Parvez Ahmad for alleged malpractices.

J&K Bank said its profits for the quarter ending June 30 had risen by 59 per cent compared to corresponding period last fiscal.

Prakash said J&K Bank has formulated a business plan for FY 2022-23 well in advance for a proactive head start with monthly targets for each business line set for the first time.

"In our business plan for the current financial year, we have made a 'Mission 2.22 lakh crore' statement where we envisage to top a total deposits figure of Rs 1.25 lakh crore, while the target for total advances is set at above Rs 95,000 crore," Prakash said.

He said while the focus on maintaining the liability mix with over 55 per cent CASA ratio continues, improving quality, yield and diversification of Asset portfolio shall be pursued vigorously.

Prakash said the bank has set its eyes on Rest of India (ROI) business growth in terms of scaling up business operations with focus on retail, PSUs and good-rated corporate borrowers.

"We are aiming to improve the share of rest of India in the overall loan book of the Bank to 50 per cent through the re-oriented business strategy to not only increase our business but also to diversify the concentration risk in our core-geography i.e. J&K.

"We see pricing and innovation in products as our main tools to help us reshape our Rest of India business story as planned," he added.

Prakash said in Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, the bank was sharpening focus on under-serviced areas of economy, especially housing that "we see as a major sector for finance in the longer term - with a plan to double our funding to the sector by 2025 - besides MSME and tourism."

Innovations in Agri-allied activities are also opening new vistas for enterprising entrepreneurship and finance, he said.