City Union Bank (CUB) plans to deploy robots in its branches, becoming the first bank in the country to do so. Japan’s Soft Bank was the first to use a robot in banking operations. CUB’s Managing Director & CEO N Kamakodi said that the ‘CUB-Lakshmi’ humanoid is a pilot project to be deployed in the bank’s T Nagar branch in Chennai.

• Initially, the robot will answer generic banking related questions posed by customers. However, later it will be integrated with banking systems enabling transactions.
• The robot that has cost the bank around Rs 7-8 lakhs can save work for 3-4 persons and will be integrated with the bank’s automation process as well.
• In case the pilot project succeeds, CUB plans to deploy around 25 robots in its branches by end of this year. The robots are customised verisons of models develpoped by a French firm.
• Being programmed to answer a maximum of 120 customer questions, the bank believes that these robots will be taking care of 95 percent of their requirements.
• Meanwhile, CUB has posted a 14.7 percent growth in net profit at Rs 123.74 crore during the quarter ending on September 30 as compared to Rs 107.84 crore during the corresponding quarter in 2015.
• The company’s total income grew 7.9 percent to Rs 894.9 crore as against Rs 829.5 crore during the same period last year.
  The bank’s gross non-performing asset (NPA) increased to Rs 597.97 crore, marking a 2.69 percent rise, during the second quarter of 2016 as compared to Rs 398.29 crore during the same period last year.
• The net NPA grew to Rs 358.60 crore (1.63 percent) as compared to Rs 255.93 crore (1.36 per cent) in 2015.