In a major turnaround, the Jammu & Kashmir Bank has been showing profits for the last few years. This year too, the bank has performed well and earned handsome profits thereby restoring the confidence of the investors into it. This has basically happened because it is being run by top banking professionals who are in its Board of Directors (BoD), according to financial experts.
Initiating the payment of dividend to shareholders, Managing Director and CEO J&K Bank Amitava Chatterjee on September 6 presented two dividend cheques of Rs 122.85 crore and Rs 7.92 crore to the Union Territory (UT) of Jammu & Kashmir administration. Incidentally, the UT administration headed by Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha is the Bank’s promoter and major shareholder for the Financial Year 2024-25.
The dividend cheques were handed over to Sinha at Raj Bhawan. Chief Secretary Atal Dulloo; Principal Secretary Finance Santosh D Vaidya, Principal Secretary to LG Dr Mandeep K. Bhandari and Mohammad Shafi Mir, Company Secretary of J&K Bank, were present on the occasion.
The dividend pay-out, which followed the Bank’s approval of 215 per cent dividend at its 87th Annual General Meeting (AGM), underscores both the Bank’s financial strength and its pivotal role in supporting the region’s economic development. This AGM was held at SKICC Srinagar on August 26 and its results for 2024-25 financial year were presented there.
Sinha congratulated the entire team of Jammu & Kashmir Bank and urged them to continue to drive substantial and sustained growth and serve the people with excellence. He said that J&K Bank should continue its focus on financial inclusion by connecting people and it should promote small and micro-enterprises for manufacturing and services. He also observed that J&K Bank had witnessed complete turnaround after 2019. The Bank was in loss of Rs. 1,139 Crore in the year 2019-20. However, there was infusion of fresh capital and there were large scale changes in its top management thereafter. Later, it was transformed and within four years, it reported a profit of Rs 1,700 Crore in the year 2023-24.
Amitava Chatterjee, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of J&K Bank outlined the Bank’s performance and roadmap ahead. He reiterated the J&K Bank’s commitment to offering the best banking services while actively contributing to Mission YUVA for inclusive, equitable, and sustainable economic growth across J&K.
It was informed that J&K Bank has performed a hat-trick of historic earnings capped by its highest-ever net profit of Rs 2,082 Cr in Financial Year 2024-25.
The Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) Bank was set up on October 1, 1938, by Maharaja Hari Singh, the then ruler of the princely state of Jammu & Kashmir. Founded to extend banking facilities and promote enterprise in the region, the bank initially operated as a semi-state bank and became the first state-owned bank in India. It was later designated as a government company under the Indian Companies Act, 1956 and received scheduled bank status in 1971. It was declared a “A” class bank by the Reserve Bank of India in 1976.
At one time, due to the political dispensations that ruled J&K for decades, efforts were made to erase the founder’s name in every possible manner. Over the years and decades, all pictures of Maharaja Hari Singh were removed from main branches of the bank. In 2013, when the Bank completed 75 years of its existence, there were only cursory mentions of the founder. However, things have changed during the last few years and the benign role of the founder is more openly acknowledged by those at the helm of affairs.
Today, the government of Jammu and Kashmir holds a majority stake in the bank. The bank operates extensively within the UTs of J&K and Ladakh, acting as the exclusive agent for carrying out banking business for the government there. The bank was listed on the stock exchange on August 4, 1998.
