During the campaign, the bank has directed all its branches to add at least 100 new accounts of women customers per month. Talking to reporters here today, George Joseph, Executive Director, Syndicate Bank said, "We have been focusing on adding new customers over the last two years and were successful in all our campaigns in the past.

This time also we are hopeful of achieving the target." The bank has added 5.5 million new accounts in the last two years through special campaigns for savings and current accounts.

He said, in an effort to achieve higher income from the retail lending segment, the Bank has set up new credit marketing teams in all its central processing units across the country.

During the current fiscal the bank would refocus on retail lending like Synd Nivas, housing loan product and Synd Senior, a scheme for senior citizens and SyndSMSBanking. It would also focus on mid corporates, small and medium enterprises, he said.

Syndicate Bank's retail lending portfolio stood at Rs 28,000 crore during 2007-08, a growth of 17 per cent over the previous year.

Joseph said the bank will continue to add more branches under the core banking solution for providing better customer services in all branches. The facility for online requests for credit is extended to educational loans, SME loans, loans to professional and self employed persons, loans for traders, farm loans, housing loans among others. Till now, the bank has received 2,000 applications online and has disbursed loans to about 1,500 applicants, he said.

The bank, which has an ATM strength of 1,006 across the country, is planning to install another 300 ATMs during the current year.

Syndicate Bank, for the year ended March 31, 2008, has registered 21.98 per cent growth under global business, which stood at Rs 1,60,368 crore compared to the previous financial year.

The growth under domestic business was higher at 23.39 per cent, which increased to Rs 1,50,042 crore. Global deposits increased by 21.03 per cent to Rs 95,171 crore.

During 2007-08, the bank focussed on increasing core deposits and recorded an impressive year on year growth of 34.08 per cent under core deposits. Low cost deposits increased by 22.29 per cent to Rs 29,453 crore.

The proportion of low cost deposits is 30.95 per cent to the total deposits. Domestic deposits increased to Rs 90,854 crore, a growth of 22.17 per cent. Advances grew by 25.31 per cent to Rs 59,188 crore compared to the previous financial year.