LAKSHMI VILAS BANK

At a well-attended press conference, A Krishnamoorthy, Chief General Manager of Lakshmi Vilas Bank detailed LVB's achievements and spelt out its future plans.  Founded by V S N Ramalinga Chettiar, in 1926, Lakshmi Vilas Bank has grown from strength to strength and is today represented at all major business centres of the country through a network of 206 branches, controlled by 8 divisional offices. The bank's reach extends to 27 metropolitan, 52 urban, 85 semi-urban and 41 rural branches.  The core strength of the bank is its focus on retail banking.  The bank is celebrating its platinum jubilee this year, having completed 75 years.

Speaking about the necessity of incorporating Information Technology into the banking infrastructure, A Krishnamoorthy said, "To meet the changing needs of customer's and the organisation, LVB has moved over from its existing software to a state-of-the-art platform that has been developed with close co-ordination with Mascon Global.  Throughout the software development life cycle, we have followed ISO 9001 standards.  Taking a path-breaking and novel step from the usual practise of developing the software in-house or out sourcing it from an external vendor, LVB jointly developed the software in co-ordination with Mascon Global.  The software has been subjected to an audit by an external agency to ratify its quality and reliability".

Krishnamoorthy added that the change over to the new software is the first phase of LVB's effort to seamlessly integrate Information Technology into the core of its banking activities and thus offer the benefits of technology to its customers through more value added services. LVB is already a member of the INFINET network that has been set up by Reserve Bank of India (RBI).  He also said that in the second phase of its efforts to integrate IT in its banking activities, LVB would exhibit connectivity between its branches through Infinet and leased lines.

Krishnamoorthy also mentioned that LVB would offer Life Insurance products from CGU Life under the ambit of a corporate agency.  The wide network of branches in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh with large retails and personnel segment of clientele and customer base of 8 lakhs, the strategic alliance with CGU Life would be leveraged for mutual benefit of the Bank and CGU.  CGU is a part of the CNGU group of companies with 300-year-old history.  It is UK's largest insurance group and is one of Europe's top five life insurer and is the sixth largest insurer in the world.

Speaking about LVB's future plans, Krishnamoorthy said that with 66% of the bank's branches in the rural and semi-urban areas, the bank would concentrate on retail lending in housing, small business, self help groups, traders and personal segments.  The bank has introduced nine credit schemes with the brand name of 'Lakshmi', such as Lakshmi Business Credit, Agribike Loan, Home Loan, Professional Credit, Consumer Credit, Car Loan, Rental Loan, Scooter Loan and Swarna Lakshmi Credit.  30% of the increase in the advances of the bank for the last year was on account of the successful implementation of the above retail products, said Krishnamoorthy while underlining the need to focus on retail banking.

Address: Lakshmi Vilas Bank, # 1, Bheemasena Garden II Street, II Floor, R H Road, Mylapore, Chennai 600 004.
Phone: 2499 3946 / 1308.
Fax: 2499 1728
E-mail: lvbid.chn@gecl.com

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