Kerala based, South Indian Bank (SIB) bags the title of ‘Best Performer in Asset Quality' in the "Analyst 2008 Survey of Indian banks" conducted by the ‘Institute for Chartered Financial Analysts of India'.

MD and CEO of the South Indian Bank, Dr.V.A.Joseph said, "This Best performer in Asset Quality recognition received at a time when banks are concerned over the creeping of NPAs into the balance sheets due to the sub-prime mortgage crisis which is a credit crisis is, no doubt, good news for our team members."

"We are glad that we could maintain the hard-earned title we have obtained in the current "ASSOCHAM- ECO PULSE" study, in which the Bank has been rated as a "Top NPA Manager" for having reduced Net NPA substantially within one year. Now the Net non-performing assets (NPA) as on 30/09/08 are lower at 0.40 percent as against 0.71 percent for September, 2007, while gross NPA is 1.86 percent (as on 30/09/08) compared with 3.41 percent for September, 2007, leading to a lower provisioning requirement. The Bank has also achieved Rs 60.00 crores in NPA recovery against the target of Rs 40.00 crore , for the first half-year of this fiscal," added Dr. Joseph.

The Bank has taken a number steps to improve the asset quality along with reducing the fresh growth of NPAs. Some of these measures include inter-face meeting with the Recovery Section Heads at the Regional Offices for review of their recovery targets, recovery meets for compromise settlements at R.Os for evolving rehabilitation and compromise packages and recovery camps at branches.

The Bank has also been able to accelerate recovery by taking hold of secured assets of the borrowers under the ‘Securitisation and Reconstruction of Financial Assets and Enforcement of Security Interest Act, 2002'.

In 2006, the bank has also won a special award for excellence in Banking Technology from IDRBT (Institute for Development and Research in Banking Technology) - the technical arm of the Reserve Bank of India.

South Indian Bank is one of the earliest banks in South India which has a strong focus on technology and service culture.