A merger of regional rural banks (RRBs) in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, as part of a nationwide exercise by the Centre aimed at consolidation and making such entities stronger will happen this fiscal.
The move will bring down the number of RRBs in the two States from five to three – one for Telangana and two for Andhra Pradesh.
For the Warangal-headquartered Andhra Pradesh Grameena Vikas Bank (APGVB), that accounts for over one-third of the total business of the five entities, it will mean morphing into Telangana Grameena Bank and staking its claim to be one of the two merged entities in AP.
Given the pace at which RRBs elsewhere are being merged, the consolidation in the two States could well happen in six-nine months, said APGVB chairman K. Praveen Kumar.