Visakhapatnam Urban Cooperative Bank has come out to be the largest cooperative bank in the entire south India with its total deposits crossing the Rs 1000 crore mark.

The chairman of the bank, Mr M. Anjaneyulu said that the bank has emerged as "the biggest co-operative bank in South India in the category of scheduled and non-scheduled co-operative urban banks."

He added that it was a momentous occasion for the bank in its onward march." The bank would be completing 100 years in the year 2016. "By then, we want to raise our business mix to Rs 3,000 crore. Our present business volume is Rs 1,785 crore (deposits amounting to Rs 1,014 crore and advances Rs 771 crore)," he said.

It presently has a branch network of 20 branches spread across five districts of Andhra namely Visakhapatnam, Vizianagaram, Srikakulam, East Godavari, Prakasam and Ranga Reddy.

"We are shortly opening a branch at Tirupati by merging the Balaji Urban Co-operative Bank with our bank. We also have concrete plans to open six more branches during the current financial year," he added.

He however said that currently the bank had no plans to introduce ATM facility for its customers. "We are not averse to introducing new technologies or making use of them. But as a co-operative bank at the present juncture we do not need ATMs or internet banking. They will not be of much use to our customers. At a later stage, we may go in for these things," he said.