Chennai: By February end, Catholic Syrian Bank (CSB), a premier private sector bank in the area will launch its first mobile ATM at Thrissur in Kerala. This was stated by the Chairman and CEO of CSB, Mr. R Venkataraman on Thursday.

CSB, which is headquartered at Thrissur, Kerala had earlier applied to RBI for opening mobile ATMs and got licenses open seven such ATMs in South India. The mobile ATMs will soon be opened at Chennai, Thiruvananthapuram and Coimbatore in addition to Thrissur. Once the police permission is through, other things will fall in place and by June, all the seven mobile ATMs will be rolled out," he added.

The chairman also announced that Sun Microsystems, a Bangalore based software company was chosen by CSB to implement Core Banking Solutions (CBS) across its network. This will help initiate a network with centralized operations and bring the benefits of latest information technology to its customers. CSB has presently a network of 356 branches, mostly located in the Southern part of the country. Venkatraman said that the entire network will be integrated with CBS by August end.

CSB has also introduced a new Gold loan scheme called the 'Kanakashree', which provides finances upto Rs. 700 per gram of gold. Hallmarked gold gets a special rate of Rs. 725 per gram of gold. This scheme is available for general customers and as a agricultural loan. For general customers loan obtained against Hallmark gold is offered at an interest rate of 12 percent for 1 year. Loans for other types of gold and over 1 year duration are available at an interest rate of 13 percent. Agricultural gold loans by CSB are available at an attractive interest rate of 7 percent.