Public sector lender, Indian Bank has focus on youth as its new target audience. The bank has figured out a plan to attract the youth through fully automated branches this fiscal.

The fiscal would see five fully automated branches of the bank, an official said.

"The first such branch will be opened in our new corporate office (here) which will be inaugurated Aug 15. The other branches will come up soon after that in Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad and Bangalore," T.M. Bhasin, the bank's chairman and managing director said.

While declaring the bank's results for the year 2009-10, Bhasin said that the e branches of the bank would have more ATMs for banking.

These e branches would operate without human interaction although in the initial phase a few staff members would be there to guide the customer, Bhasin added.

The bank would be coming up with 190 branches across India this year. With this the total count of the bank's branches would reach to ovr 1, 940.

Bhasin also said that the topline ( sales ) and bottomline (net profits) of the bank rose by 14.81 percent and 24.87 percent respectively for the fiscal just ended.

"The bank posted a total income of Rs.9,030.32 crore and a net profit of Rs.1,554.99 crore last year as against Rs.7,865.77 crore and Rs.1,245.32 crore respectively during 2008-09. The bank did total business of Rs.150,000 crore (deposits Rs.88,228 crore, advances Rs.62,658 crore," Bhasin said.

Talking on the issue of hike in repo, reverse repo and CRR by RBI he said, "Around Rs.215 crore has been sucked out of the system towards reserves."

The bank's gross as well as net NPA level had risen to Rs.510 crore and Rs.145 crore respectively last year as against Rs.459 crore and Rs.94 crore booked during 2008-09.

The NPA provision coverage ratio of the bank is 94% as against the set 70% standard.

"Even a recovery of Re.1 next year will add to our profits," an official said.