With a view to run centralized and time-bound processing of loan proposals, public lender, UCO Bank has started a Retail Loan Shoppe in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh.

The bank's director Ram Niwas Jain said that Shoppe would sanction an in-principle approval for an eligible loan application within 3 days and the final sanction would be made in a 10 days period.

The Shoppe has been launched at 11 branches of the UCO bank in Lucknow. UCO Bank has 20 branches in the city and out of these 11 will start Shoppe while the remaining 9 are also expected to come under its fold by the end of April 2009.

The Deputy General Manager of the bank, RK Mehrotra said that the proposal to launch Shoppe at other zonal branches, including Aligarh, has also been sent to the headquarters for approval.

"The scheme has already been launched at Kolkata, Bangalore and some other places," said Mehrotra.

In the meantime, Lucknow zone of UCO Bank has restructured 176 loans given to micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs). The bank has taken this move to help the ailing MSME sector that is facing severe crunch due to the slowdown.