Mayur.Shetty@timesgroup.comMumbai: Union Bank of India is set to double in size in a few months following the merger with Corporation Bank and Andhra Bank . The government has already infused Rs 11,700 crore into Union Bank and has indicated April 1 as a tentative date for the merger. In an interview with TOI, the bank’s MD & CEO Rajkiran Rai G speaks of how learnings from Bank of Baroda ’s amalgamation have helped save several months in implementing the merger. Excerpts:What stage has the merger reached in terms of approvals?We are working with a plan to compete the process as early as possible and we are working with April 1 as a tentative date. The boards of the respective banks have approved the plan. Once we get the approval from the government and the regulator, the board will decide the swap ratio and put up the same for approval with the shareholders.Are there any preparations for the integration?A lot. We have created a governance structure for execution. The governance structure comes from the board — a sub-committee of the board, a committee of MDs, and committee of general managers. There are 30 functional teams from the different banks looking at every product and process. There are 228 products out of 279 which have already been harmonised. Similarly, there are 179 policies of which 114 are harmonised. The functional teams have had 288 meetings. The GM committee, which approves what the functional teams have done, have met 71 times. Next, our IT teams will work on the products that will be launched on the zero date. From the customer point of view, it has been decided by the functional teams that there is no need to change the account numbers.How will you rationalise the products? Will it be ‘best in three’?We have decided not to go in for ‘best in three’ (of the three banks) but the ‘best in class’. Since we are already working on the products, we decided that if there are better products in the markets, we will go with them. By the third week of January, the IT teams would get into developing and rationalising the products.What kind of integration has happened in IT?We are in Finacle 10 (core banking system) and so is Corporation Bank. Andhra Bank is on Finacle 7, so it may take some more time. The full integration should be done in nine months. But on day 1, we will give basic services like cash withdrawal and cash deposit from all branches. We have saved at least three-four months in our amalgamation plan on the back of the learnings from the Bank of Baroda merger.Will there be rationalisation of branches?Fortunately for us, there is not much overlap except in some major cities. Even if we rationalise some branches in large cities, in future we will use the licence for opening more branches elsewhere. Branch network is very important for current & saving deposits and retail business. We are also thinking of moving some departments to the south. For instance, digital banking can be in Mangalore or Hyderabad. Similarly, audit and retail credit department need not be in the headquarters. Moving the departments will avoid unnecessary displacement of people. Also, we will need to expand the administrative structure to support the doubling of business that will happen after the merger. Besides having a new post of chief general managers, we will have more corporate branches, headed by general managers, in places where the merging banks are strong.How do you plan to reposition yourself?With three banks coming together, there is an opportunity to relook at the whole structure and position ourself as a strong digital bank. This is essential to push MSME and retail business where analytics and artificial intelligence are becoming important.What about subsidiaries and partnerships?In addition to our London and our mutual fund subsidiary, we will retain CorpBank Securities. There will be two life insurance joint ventures — Star Union Dai-ichi and First Life where Andhra Bank has a stake. Andhra Bank is planning to sell its stake.