Central bank of India, a leading public sector bank, expects an increase of around 25 percent in its home loan segment in the ongoing fiscal, as indicated by a top official. He said that this would help the bank to increase its portfolio size to Rs 10,000 crore.

The bank's Chairman and Managing Director, S Sridhar said," We are looking at a home loan growth of about 25 per cent this year. Approximately, it (the home loan portfolio) is Rs 8,000-crore. After the 25 per cent growth, it will be another Rs 2,000-crore.

Central bank's current home loan portfolio accounts for around 8 percent of its entire loan portfolio. Sridhar said that the bank expected this figure to rise to 9-9.5 percent.

The bank is strengthening its back-end systems in order to enhance its retail operations in the home loan segment.

Sridhar said that the bank's retail push would start after two months when the systems are in place. He said that real growth in retail would take place the next year. He added that the bank was planning to increase its CASA (Current account Savings account) deposits.

He also said the bank recorded a nine per cent loan growth as on September 30, over March 31. As on end-September, the loan portfolio of the bank stood at Rs 92,000 crore.

The Public Sector bank is planning to sell off a significant portion of its non-performing assets (NPAs) this fiscal so as to facilitate their expansion plans. The gross and the net NPAs of the bank are Rs. 2,200 crore and Rs.700 crore respectively.