Indian Bank Board to meet on Sept 18 to consider amalgamation of Allahabad Bank

The Board of Directors of the Indian Bank will meet on September 18 to consider the amalgamation of Allahabad Bank with itself, Executive Director M.K. Bhattacharya said here on Friday. The Board will also consider additional capital infusion by the government by way of preferential issue of shares subject to regulatory approvals, he added.

"Our Board of Directors will be meeting on September 18 to consider amalgamation of the Allahabad Bank with the Indian Bank. Prior to the merger, there are several steps like the appointment of a consultant, valuation of the bank to arrive at the share swap ratio," Bhattacharya told reporters on the sidelines of a function to launch its digital customer loyalty reward points scheme.

According to a regulatory filing by the Allahabad Bank, its Board of Directors would be meeting on September 16 to consider amalgamation with the Indian Bank.

Earlier launching the `Ind Advantage`, the customer loyalty reward points scheme, Bhattacharya said the bank has come out with this scheme to stay competitive in the market.

He said the scheme will be for customers using its debit cards, mobile and net banking facilities. The customers can redeem the rewards points at various retail outlets.

Queried about the future of the scheme with the merger of the Allahabad Bank being planned, Bhattacharya said the better of the two reward schemes will prevail if the Allahabad Bank has such a scheme for its customers.

He said Indian Bank has a total of 4.25 crore accounts and of which 3.50 crore are active.

Bhattacharya said initially the scheme will be for its debit card customers and later, will be extended to credit card customers as well.

According to him, the cost for banks goes down drastically in the case of digital transactions and the cost saving is being shared with the customers given the competition also has similar schemes.

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Bhattacharya said the bank hopes to attract new customers per month with this rewards redemption scheme. Indian Bank has tied up with Loylty Rewardz Mngt Pvt Ltd for the rewards scheme.

Meanwhile, the Indian Bank, in a regulatory filing on Friday, said S&P Global Ratings has revised its issuer credit rating from BBB-/Stable/A-3 to BBB-/Negative/A-3.