Canara Bank opens 104 branches in a single day
November 19, 2009 – 1:26 pm by Shalini AmarnaniTo mark its 104th anniversary Canara Bank is opening 104 branches all over India today. The maximum are based in Karnataka (44) it’s home state. Today happens to be the birthday of its founder - the late Ammembal Subba Rao Pai.
Besides the large number of branches being opened the reason why this is newsworthy for us is that in the USA we have banks downsizing the number of branches. Infact we had even blogged about customers reducing the bank branching.
But is that true for India? Does India need more bank branches? Going by RBI statistics most Indian banks have been busy expanding their branch networks…even some foreign banks are doing so.
The growth in the rural area is lagging behind at 1.9% while the number of branches in semi-urban, urban and metropolitan have grown at a rate of more that 6%
RSS
2 Responses to “Canara Bank opens 104 branches in a single day”
Its good that banks become omnipresent. With insurance sector already started utilizing banks through bancassurance the days are not far for banks becoming a trustworthy channel of distribution for various financial products.
By Magesh on Nov 20, 2009
We cannot compare the trends in the US Financial & Banking Industry with that of in India blindly.
One has to consider the number of un-banked population in India, the number of banks per person ratio and also the prevalent technological capabilities of the country.
I feel there is still a lot of expansion scope for Banks in India. One should not be surprised if other Banks also go full-throttel to increase their branches.
By VJ1681 on Dec 9, 2009