IOB looks to shift focus to M&A financing

Indian Overseas Bank (IOB) is betting big on merger and acquisition (M&A) financing, a field recently opened by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for banks.

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The lender is also taking steps to address concerns around Current Account and Savings Account (CASA), said Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Ajay Kumar Srivastava in an interview with Shine Jacob in Chennai. Edited excerpts:

We are going to the board with a policy for M&A. Once it is approved, we will certainly be looking at this. There is a lot of scope in this in Tamil Nadu and other states. This is an area where good lending can happen, and that is one of the priorities for the next quarter.

In terms of CASA percentage, we are the third-best bank among public sector banks after Bank of Maharashtra and Central Bank. We are consistently maintaining it at around 42-43 per cent. For the September quarter, it has come down to around 40.5 per cent for the first time.