Two leading cooperative banks - The Saraswat Co-operative Bank Limited and Pune-based Vidya Sahakari Bank Limited, have entered a strategic alliance to strengthen their base to face stiff competition from private sector and nationalised banks. Saraswat with its deposit of Rs 2000 crores and Vidya with its Rs 120 crore deposit base expect to obtain synergies with this alliance.The banks will be sharing with each other large scale advance account on the basis of a consortium agreement. This will help in managing their industry-wide concentration risk in an organised way. Saraswat Bank will be helping Vidya to invest its surplus funds in approved government securities. Saraswat is among the two cooperative banks to have an authorised dealer license and it would provide a line of credit to Vidya Bank to cover various foreign exchange transactions. Saraswat Bank would extend correspondent banking services to Vidya Bank. Other areas of cooperation include sharing of consortium advances, treasury support, foreign exchange support, outstation cheques collection, depository support and bank guarantee arrangements. There will also be sharing of database, management and staff training support. Saraswat Bank proposes to provide depository services to the customers of Vidya Sahakari Bankn through its depository cell.An MoU was signed between the Saraswat Bank Chairman, Ashok Pandit, MD, D Shirodkar and chairman of Vidya Bank, Vidhyadhar Anaskar and CEO, Vinod Sadhu.
