Indian Bank enhances card portfolio

Chennai:
Indian Bank on Wednesday enhanced its card portfolio with the launch of MasterCard prepaid gift and travel cards.

Addressing a press conference here on Wednesday, chairman and managing directoir of Indian Bank  T M Bhasin said that it plans to sell 100,000 travel cards and 200,000 gift cards by the end of this fiscal year.
With the launch of prepaid gift cards, the customers can now gift it to near and dear ones as an ideal substitute to cash, which provides the beneficiary the freedom to choose their own gifts, Bhasin said.
The gift card can be used at any master card affiliated merchant outlet in India and cardholders can access any Indian Bank ATM for balance enquiry. The card are available in denominations starting from Rs1,000 and going up to a maximum of Rs 50,000.
Similarly, the bank is offering prepaid travel cards, which is valid for three years from the date of issue. The travel cards will be available through select foreign exchange authorized branches of Indian Bank and provide facility of multiple reloads.

Bhasin also said that Indian Bank will not be affected much by the restructuring package announced by the Union government for state electricity distribution companies.

He said the bank has already restructured some of the loans to state electricity distribution companies. Indian Bank has an exposure of Rs.5,000 crore which is accounted by the state power distribution companies. Bhasin said that around Rs.2,200 crore have been restructured. As for the remaining Rs 2,800 crore, we have not got any requests. The bank has exposures to power distribution companies in Gujarat, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Haryana, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh.