Mumbai: The third largest private lender Axis Bank today said it is working towards taking its retail loan-book to 30 per cent of the total assets over the next three to four years, as it sees the retail loan segment as a large market opportunity going forward. "We want to increase the share of our retail loan-book to 30 percent of our total asset book over the next 3-4 years from the present 21 percent," Axis Bank Senior Vice-President and Head (Consumer Lending and Payments) Jairam Sridharan said here. He was talking to reporters after launching Insta PIN, a facility that allows a customer to receive the ATM PIN, if lost, on the mobile phone through the bank''s IVR system. Explaining the strategy behind this aggressive retail loan growth strategy, Sridharan said going forward the retail loan growth will be driven by the small towns and Tier 2 and 3 cities. "If the latest numbers are any indication, already this is visible as only 60 percent of the loan business now comes from the top eight metros, which was over 85 per cent a couple of years ago. Going forward, this will only increase from small towns," he said. Towards achieving this, the bank is increasing the number of its focused branches from the present 650, spanning 100 cities, mostly Tier 2 & 3 centres, he said. The bank has 85 exclusive loan processing centres, apart from the 1,446 branches in 953 locations. Axis has overseas offices in Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Colombo, Dubai and Abu Dhabi. (more) PTI BEN RSY YB