Malappuram district coop. bank merger soon

The Malappuram district cooperative bank will soon merge with the Kerala Bank, the Cooperation Department said.

The legal hurdles which had prevented the merger had been removed with the High Court permitting the State government to go ahead, Cooperation Minister V.N. Vasavan’s office said in a statement.

The decision is to go ahead with the merger at the earliest with the approval of the Reserve Bank of India, the department said. Only the Malappuram district cooperative bank had stood apart when the Kerala Bank was created through the merger of 13 district cooperative banks.

The merger had replaced the three-tier system with a two-tier system, an arrangement which guaranteed better interest rates and profits to the cooperators, according to the department.

The reluctance of the Malappuram bank to be part of the merger prevented the extension of modern banking facilities that were introduced in the Kerala Bank.