By IANS,
Kolkata : Stressing the need to deregulate the savings account product in its entirety, a top official of the state-run Punjab National Bank Wednesday said mere deregulation of savings bank account interest rate would cause short-term destabilisation of the bank’s interest rate structure.
PNB chairman cum managing director K.R. Kamath described saving rate as the anchor on which the bank builds its other interest rates. “If you destabilise it and allow it to float, then that will cause destabilisation of the entire rate structure in the short run,” he said.
“If you deregulate the interest rates, that may not benefit the customers. The need is to deregulate the savings bank account product as a whole,” Kamath told media persons on the sidelines of a FICCI-organised banking conclave here.
He said the bank has plans to recruit 9,000 people – 3,000 officers and 6,000 clerks – this fiscal.
The bank was eyeing a 20-22 percent deposit growth and 20 percent credit growth during 2011-12.
Kamath said the bank’s involvement in infrastructural areas like ports and roads have gone up, though lending in power and telecom have become sluggish. Infrastructure advances now comprise 16-17 percent of the bank’s advance portfolio.
The bank has applied to the Reserve Bank of India and the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority for the necessary clearances so as to acquire a 30 percent stake in Metlife.