India’s TOP 500 Companies 2020

INDIA’S TOP 500 COMPANIES 2020 121 Experts’ View Union Bank of India RAJKIRAN RAI G Managing Director & CEO Union Bank of India today is one of the largest state-owned banks in India. What are some key factors for the Bank’s success? What are some biggest milestones achieved by the Banking recent times? Union Bank has been a winner organisation in its century long journey. It has distinction of rising five ranks from 10th largest nationalised bank by assets in early 1990s to become fifth largest over next couple of decades. Over the last few years, Union Bank has implemented structural initiatives aimed at increasing business, service capabilities and efficiency. The bank established centralized processing centers (CPCs) for credit underwriting, which now cover ~80% of the bank’s business. It has significantly reduced the turnaround time for sanction & delivery of the credit and helped the branches to focusmore onmonitoring& recovery aspects. Our credit monitoring function is one of the most advanced with structural, procedural and technology driven. Our IT & Analytics capabilities have been unique in the industry as we encourage development of customized in-house tools as per our business requirements. Besides, our focus on capital light growth helped serve the needs of productive sectors of economy with minimal capital burn. These developments have placed our bank in a position of strength to approach opportunities ahead. What kind of synergies are expected from the amalgamation with Andhra Bank and Corporation Bank? Amalgamation has brought many operational & revenue synergies by increased presence, enhanced resources, and sectoral & regional competitive advantages. The Bank aims to harness revenue synergies through utilization of wider reach and product base, cost synergies through reduction of duplication and removing legacy costs, as also leveraging one- off gains from investments in joint ventures and IT cost rationalization. Post Amalgamation, the market share of the Bank stands around 6.3%, which gives us strong starting point to achieve our objectives. How Union Bank of India has responded to the disruption caused by the ongoing pandemic? What is your strategy to tide over this crisis? Our first priority has been to ensure safety and well-being of our people, both staff and customers, while ensuring seamless service delivery for our clients. The Bank promptly activated its business continuity plan to deploy all contingency arrangements. Next was to help our clients tide through any difficulties, financial or otherwise. I am proud to share that Union Bank could keep over 98% of branches functional even at the height of Covid disruption, thus providing essential banking services to the Nation. The Bank came with emergency credit lines for small and medium corporates as also personal loans for consumers to help them address any cash flow disruption. We have used the Covid disruption to expedite our digital transition, making more services available on mobile, and using digital to improve our operational efficiency, and service standards. “ Amalgamation with Andhra Bank and Corporation Bank has brought many operational & revenue synergies by increased presence, enhanced resources, and sectoral & regional competitive advantages. ” Dun & Bradstr et