Public sector lender, United Bank of India is gearing up to keep pace with the growing competition in the banking arena. The lender has decided to put up retail processing centers across 26 locations all over the country as aids to profitability. The bank had identified that the major reason behind losing out to rivals was that they scored much higher in margins due to focus on retail business.

Presently retail loans form a meagre 13% of the total outstanding loans of the bank. It aims to raise the level to 18% in the upcoming few years.

UBI chairman and managing director Bhaskar Sen said, "We have started emphasising on retail lending and aim to improve the retail loan share to 18% in the next two years."

Retail processing centers are owned by major lenders like State Bank of India and Punjab National Bank also. UBI has lauched one such center in Kolkata on January 1.

Speaking about profitability Mr Sen said, "We expect to sustain net interest margin or NIM around 3%."