Public sector Canara Bank will launch a new version of gold loan that would be as easy as getting a jewel loan from any pawn broker or private finance firms, a top official of the bank has said.

"Terms of gold loan references will be highly relaxed and customer friendly than any private firms offering the gold loan to the people," Rajiv Kishore Dubey, Chairman and Managing Director of the bank told PTI here.

Besides, there is also a plan to launch new version of property mortgage loans. The two new versions of the loans are pending for approval and endorsement from the risk management team, he said.

"We plan to launch the two loans as a pilot project in specified areas and would be extended to other areas in a phased manner through out India," he added.

The bank also has plans to recruit 5,000 staff in the coming years. The staff are being recruited as the bank planned to increase its number of branches to 5,000 from the present 3,676, Dubey said.

Special thrust would be given to the Northeast where 140 more branches would be opened. The number of ATMs also would be increased from 6,000 to 10,000 in the next couple of years.

The bank has a strong capital adequacy ratio of 12.6 per cent. "It is very comfortable going by Reserve Bank norms," he said.

The bank's customer base is 4.6 crore and by March next it would touch five crore. The bank has allocated Rs 32,000 crore to facilitate lending for micro small and medium enterprises.

There is scope for increasing MSME lending in the state. In order to facilitate further growth and activity, the bank has reduced rate of interest for MSME loans to 12.5 per cent, the lowest in the banking industry. The bank's net NPA was 2.6 per cent, he said.

The bank's total business would be around Rs five lakh crore to six lakh crore as against Rs 5.56 crore last year.

On the percentage of overseas operations, he said it was 4.7 per cent of the bank's business, with five full-fledged branches and few more representative offices abroad.

He was optimistic of enhancing the percentage of overseas operations to 10 per cent of the bank's business in the next two years. The RBI has given approval to open nine branches including in New York, Frankfurt, Quatar and Nigeria. The branches would be opened in 12 to 18 months, he added.