Indian Overseas Bank revises lending strategy to control bad loans

Indian Overseas Bank (IOB) is revising its lending strategy to tackle the increasing bad loans. It will focus more on loans to the retail, small and medium enterprises and agriculture segments even as it goes slow on corporate loans.

During July-September quarter, the bank has added bad loans aggregating of Rs 1,854 crore in. So it has revised its credit growth target for this fiscal from 20-22% projected earlier to 16-18%.

Banks gross non-performing assets as on September-end 2012, including domestic and overseas bad loans, stood at Rs 5,930 crore against Rs 3,898 crore as on September-end 2011, while the gross NPA to gross advances ratio was higher at 3.87% against 3.07%.