We extend warm greetings to all of our customers on this auspicious day ( 01/06/2016) when revamped official website of the bank is launched. We convey thanks to all of our employees for their cooperation and sincere effort for developing/launching this site. In the last decade the banking industry witnessed a lot of Ups and downs. GOI and RBI introduced a lot of regulatory measures for turning around of weak Banks and for better financial discipline. We will now share our glorious past, present and future with you. The major challenges before all Banks are to grow with latest technology and to remain profitable at any cost.
In the year 1918, this organization started its operation in the name of Bengal Provincial Cooperative Federation Ltd. After four years of operation it had converted into a Bank. It has taken a continuous spell on the growth path to acquire a growth of this nature barring some few sluggish years. It proves that this Bank imbibes growth in its culture.
The Bank considers ‘Cooperation’ a movement for the poorer section of the society. Our bank has decided to invest for upliftment of the underprivileged.. This Bank contributed a substantial amount to the Agrarian Field of West Bengal especially for small and marginal farmers. Recovery increased on an average of time. The Bank has been able to develop Self Help Group(cooperative within cooperative) for poorest section of the society. In short Term cooperative credit structure the Number of Self Help Groups is more than 1,95,000. For empowerment of women the Bank always encourages women participation. Till date total number of members in SHG crossed 18 lakh. The most astonishing thing is that percentage of women member of SHGs is near about 90%. Amazingly recovery from SHG is nearly cent percent. During 2014-15 the Bank has excelled in SHG financing. We have secured:
(1) The first Position under the Highest Number of SHG financed per Branch category
(2)The first Position under the Overall Performance in SHG-Bank Linkage Programme and
(3) Second Position in Highest amount Financed Per SHG in the category of Central Cooperative Banks in West Bengal.
We have planned to distribute at least 3 lacs KCC amongst the farmers. We have planned to introduce RuPay KCC for the farmers. Farmers can take loan from our Bank for purchasing of modern equipment for better productivity/yield
In the meantime, our focus has changed to make the banking facilities available to everybody in the state and to expand credit flow to all classes of society. We have also started offering home loan, personal loan, and consumer loan. The organization had changed qualitatively both in size and dimension. Responding to the changing time we reorganized the organizational structure by converting three amalgamated unit offices into Regional offices.
Competition from the commercial, foreign and private Banks forced the management to think in a different way. The bank realized that without adoption of technology i.e. computerization we can’t cope up with this cut throat completion. Bank successfully completed computerization of all 43 branches. We have introduced RTGS/NEFT for swift transfer of fund, CTS for clearing of cheque within a shortest possible time, more and more number of ATM are being installed to facilitate our customer in 24 hour banking. We have also introduced POS in all of our branches so that customer can avail facility of merchant banking.
At the same time the Bank started treasury operation from Kolkata. A smart performance of treasury section - prudent investment in call money market, Inter Bank deposit and Bond market- helped the bank to book record profit in the last financial year.
From computerization to networking of ATM, Insurance and now Retail Banking we have moved up the value chain. We are in the process of reorganizing the bank keeping in view the market, products, customers and social needs. We have the objective of achieving profitability that is comparable to the market. We believe welfare maximization and profitability are the major factors for very survival of the bank. We are extending our technical expertise to all Primary Agricultural Cooperative Society, District Central Cooperative Banks and Urban Cooperative Banks for developing their computer infrastructure.
Now we are moving towards anyhow banking. As we enter the future, we need a low cost organization. We hope adequate infrastructure, technology, quality manpower, proper control system and optimum size in terms of service branches/outlets and varied products will grow this bank exponentially. We hope in coming years we will maintain this sustained growth. We don’t want satisfied customer only we want delighted customers.