Bangalore, Jan 6 (KNN) The Bank of Maharashtra has set a target of extending 20 per cent of its advances to the MSME sector in the next fiscal (2014-15), its Chairman and Managing Director Sushil Muhnot said.

“Currently, the retail and MSME sectors account for 11 per cent and 16 per cent of the total advances respectively. The Bank aims to expand the business in these two sectors to 15 per cent and 20 per cent respectively by March end,” he recently told reporters here.

The Bank’s total advances stand at Rs 88,000 crore as of September 2013, Muhnot said.

The gross non-performing assets of the bank grew to 2.77 per cent of advances. The public sector lender recently launched a one-time standardised settlement scheme for recovery of outstanding loans amounting to Rs 800 crore.

The scheme is mainly for small loans with a size of Rs 5 lakh with some concessions.

Muhnot told reporters on Friday, “Our aim is to recover these non-performing assets by incentivising the borrowers who have not repaid their loans for a long time. The scheme will mainly benefit housing loan and micro business enterprises to settle their dues.”

The bank is planning to cover loan portfolio up to Rs 10 lakh in the next phase depending upon the response to the scheme.

The Bank's gross NPA’s are in the range of Rs 2,500 crore as on September 2013.

The Bank CMD also said that their focus would be on growing retail and MSME loan books in the coming year.

The Bank plans to open 34 retail and MSME loan processing centres across the country to strengthen the expansion of advances to these two sectors. (KNN Bureau)