The public sector lender, Allahabad Bank aims to trim down its gross non- performing assets (NPA) level to around 3.2 per cent from the last financial year's level of 3.92 per cent on the back of sustained effort on recovery, bank's top official said.

"As far as asset quality is concerned, we aim to bring down our gross NPAs to around 3.2 per cent by end of this fiscal from 3.92 per cent in FY13," Chairman and Managing director of Allahabad, Mrs Shubhalakshmi Panse said.

She also added that the bank is monitoring bad accounts on a daily basis along with focus on recovery. "We aim to recover Rs 2,800-3,000 crore in the current fiscal from Rs 2,300 crore done last fiscal," Mrs. Panse said.

Last week, Allahabad Bank had posted a 68.5 per cent decline in net profit at Rs 126.15 crore in the fourth quarter of last financial year on account of rise in bad loans.

Referring to the cost of funds for the bank, Mrs. Panse said that with the re-pricing of bulk deposits, it had already come down in Q4 and is likely to go down further.

Mrs. Panse also said that the growth of low cost deposit (CASA) is good for the bank and it hopes to sustain it in the current fiscal.

The bank had a CASA (current account, savings account) ratio of around 31 per cent by end of the past fiscal. Mrs. Panse, however, said it has little scope for reduction in lending rates as it had already done so in February and its current lending rates are also competitive.

On the issue of growth in loan book, Mrs. Panse said while corporate loan book will see good growth, the bank also wants to increase its retail assets.

"We aim to increase our retail loan book to 15 per cent from present 13.5 per cent," Mrs. Panse said.