Union Bank pares bulk deposits by nearly Rs 25,000 crore in Q1, targets sub 15% share of total deposits: MD Asheesh Pandey

State owned Union Bank of India on Wednesday said it reduced its bulk term deposits by nearly Rs 25,000 crore during the first quarter of FY27.

Bulk term deposits declined to Rs 2.52 lakh crore as on June 30, 2026, from Rs 2.76 lakh crore at the end of March 2026, marking a reduction of Rs 24,907 crore, or about 9 per cent sequentially. During the same period, CASA plus retail term deposits increased to Rs 10.31 lakh crore.

Speaking during the bank's post-earnings media interaction, Managing Director & CEO Asheesh Pandey said Union Bank's deposit strategy is centred on improving the quality of liabilities rather than chasing overall deposit growth.

"The first preference is to build CASA and retail term deposits," Pandey said, adding that the bank has consistently focused on replacing bulk deposits with granular retail deposits.

He said the bank has already reduced the share of bulk deposits by 7.59 percentage points and is working towards bringing them to below 15 per cent of total deposits, and that the transition would take time.

"CASA and retail term deposits cannot be built overnight. It is a continuous process, but our objective is very clear: to reduce dependence on bulk deposits and improve the granularity of our deposit book," Pandey said.

Global deposits stood at Rs 12.83 lakh crore at the end of June compared with Rs 13.07 lakh crore in March, a decline of 1.8 per cent quarter-on-quarter, while the domestic CASA ratio remained healthy at 35.1 per cent.

Pandey also said that on an average basis, the bank added around Rs 24,000 crore in CASA deposits and Rs 17,000 crore in retail term deposits, taking the combined increase in these two segments to roughly Rs 41,000 crore.

During the April-June quarter, Union Bank reported a 29.6 per cent year-on-year increase in net profit to Rs 5,332 crore, while net interest margin improved to 2.80 per cent from 2.64 per cent in the previous quarter, aided by a better funding mix and lower cost of deposits. The bank maintained a capital adequacy ratio of 18.46 per cent and a CET-1 ratio of 16.38 per cent.