On the eve of entering its 145th year of service, Kolkata-based Allahabad Bank, has made announcement about the retail selling of gold coins publicly.

The public sector lender said that it will shortly launch the scheme in other areas.

While speaking to media persons, Mr. KR Kamath, Allahabad Bank Chairman & Managing Director, stated that at first, the coins will be available in denominations of four (4), eight (8) and ten (10) grams in select core banking solutions branches of the bank.

Mr. Kamath also said that gold bars of 20 and 50 grams will also be available later.

Allahabad Bank gold coins come with an ‘ASSAY Certification’, showing the highest quality of gold at 99.99% purity.

The gold is packed in tamper - proof blister packs, which are see through at the manufacturing stage itself to prevent any damage/ theft during transit.

The coins will be competitively priced based on the everyday rates in the global bullion market and quoted daily exclusive of VAT/Sales Tax.

The bank posted 18% growth in deposits and advances during the last fiscal (2008-09), as against the same period of the last fiscal.

As on March 31, 2009, the bank has attained a total business of Rs 144,000 crore, out of which Rs 84,865 crore comes from deposits and Rs59,177 crore is from advances.

Moreover, the bank is projecting over 20 per cent growth in business during the financial year 2009-10.

The bank was aspiring to attain a total business of Rs 1.75 lakh crore by March 2010, as against Rs 1.44 lakh crore in March 2009.