Merger with Canara Bank is in process: Syndicate Bank Chief

Mrutyunjay Mahapatra, Managing director and CEO of Syndicate Bank that the bank’s integration process with Canara Bank is in the process.
“We have some large non-banking financial companies (NBFC) slippages and as a result of that, the total slippages have been Rs 3,239 crore during December 2019 quarter but the net slippage is negative. In the sense that we had September 2019 total non-performing assets (NPA) figure was Rs 25,382 now it has come down to 25,330,” he said.
Mahapatra further said, “Recovery has been almost double. The cash recovery in September 2019 was Rs 1,134 crore and now it is Rs 2,216 crore. Of which National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) — Ruchi Soya and Essar Steel money came, so Rs 1,066 crore recovery in that. So, all put together it has been very good.”
He added, “We are aiming to be in the same range, between 4% and 6.5% kind of a thing. That is what we are seeing also in the first month. So my aim — 7% — is an outlier as compared to many of the public sector banks (PSB) peers. But we have put a large number of initiatives including specialised housing loan vertical and specialised vertical for retail loans. So these are paying dividends to us. I am hoping to continue with the trend.”
The public sector lender is set to be merged with Canara Bank. Mahapatra
said that the merger process is on track. “[With] Canara Bank we had had a large number of discussions and in fact, the integration process is well on
track. If the government notifies April 1 as the effective date then we are in readiness.”