Canara Bank, which is planning to open 1,250 new branches in this financial year, expects to focus on rural and semi-urban areas than urban/metropolitan regions for these branches. This is because of lower real estate prices and cost of operations. The bank, during fiscal 2013-14, opened 1,027 branches, taking the total branch network to 4,755, including five overseas branches. R.K. Dubey, CMD of the bank, said new branches are being opened to achieve the twin objectives of expanding reach and improving the CASA (current and savings account) ratio. For the current fiscal, the bank has set a CASA target of 30%, as compared with 25.9% in FY14. Dubey said CASA ratio (domestic) improved to 25.9% at the end of March 2014 from 25.1% last year (2012-13).
