NEW DELHI: State-owned Oriental Bank of Commerce (OBC) is aiming for a credit growth of 12% in the current fiscal with focus on retail and SME lending.

“We are intending to do between 10-12 per cent (loan) growth going forward. We are not targeting to increase corporate credit in a big way. We are targeting to increase our retail growth,” said OBC Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Animesh Chauhan.

The bank witnessed a 3.78% credit growth in 2015-16. Apart from retail, the bank will also focus on micro, small and medium enterprises. “Our bank has launched lot of new schemes for the MSME sector and with that, we expect to get a little better share on MSME lending also,” he said. He further said the bank will look for good lending opportunities in the corporate sector as well, and as soon as the economy picks up, demand for credit will rise. With regard to recovery of bad loans, Chauhan said, the bank is working on measures to recover money from all defaulters including those who are willfully not clearing their dues. The bank witnessed deterioration in asset quality with gross non-performing assets (NPAs), as a percentage of total advances, rising significantly to 9.57 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2015-16, from 5.18 per cent in the year-ago period. At the same time, the net NPA also rose to 6.70 per cent as against 3.34 per cent in the same quarter of the previous fiscal. Fresh addition to NPA during the quarter jumped to Rs 4,019 crore as against Rs 762.18 crore in the same period a year ago. — PTI