Media Release

Mangalore, May 7: Inflation is a major worry and liquidity management is a challenge for the apex bank were observations made by P Jayaram Bhat, managing director, Karnataka Bank Limited during the Regional Heads’ Review Conference held at bank’s headoffice here on Saturday May 7 to review the performance of the regions for the quarter ended March.

Reserve Bank of India is doing its utmost to contain the runaway inflation. In its latest monetary policy, the RBI has increased the repo rate and reverse repo rate. It has also raised the Savings Bank rate from 3.5 per cent to 4 per cent thereby bringing marginal relief to small savers. Moderation in credit-deposit ratio is being stressed in view of the mismatch between the two, he said.

He added that the RBI is emphasizing the need for Banks to reduce the spread between deposit and lending rates. Under this emerging situation, we should look for low\no cost deposits. Further, the quality of assets is of vital importance. Non performing advances should be curtailed, he said and called upon the Regional Heads to understand their role well and guide the branches to achieve the desired results by improving operational efficiency and increasing fee based income, he said.

General manager P Jairama Hande welcomed the members and briefed the members about the implications of monetary policy statement announced by the RBI besides throwing light on the performance of the Bank for the financial year 2010-11.

General managers N Upendra Prabhu, B Ashok Hegde and M V C S. Karanth also spoke.

K G Ramesh Rao, deputy general manager, gave a presentation with relevant facts and figures for the year ended March 2011.

N R Ravishankar, assistant general manager, proposed the vote of thanks.