Money flows from Indian retail mart

Dutch banking major ABN Amro Bank NV finds the Indian retail finance market the fastest growing revenue earner worldwide.

"The revenue growth from India is the fastest among all the markets we are present in. In India the consumer banking space is growing rapidly with the fast economic growth and the increase in the bankable population," said Lex Kloosterman, CEO private clients/new growth markets, ABN Amro Bank NV.

The Dutch bank's revenues from the Indian retail market are growing at 75 per cent on a year-on-year basis. The second runner up in terms of geographical regions is Greater China which is growing at a much slower pace of 40 per cent. But the Greater China market is much more matured with a higher level of sophistication than India, he added.

"Our areas of maximum growth in India are private banking, mortgage loans, car loans and credit cards. The outsourcing wing, ACES, is also growing rapidly. We are catering to not just ABN Amro Bank but also to other clients," said Kloosterman. ACES is a Mumbai-based, 100 per cent subsidiary of ABN Amro that handles back-end processing of the bank's transactions.

The bank is growing its retail revenues (includes interest income and non-interest income) at a clip of 60 per cent, while the SME and commercial revenues are growing at 50 per cent this year, said Romesh Sobti, country representative and executive vice-president, ABN AMRO Bank NV.

The bank had set the Indian mortgage market on fire when it launched the 6 per cent home loan product in October 2003 targeting a 10 per cent pie out of the Rs 50,000 crore home loan segment.

The bank's looks upon its presence in the Indian mortgage market as crucial as India is the fourth major home market for after the US, Netherlands and Brazil.

The bank is estimated to have a credit card base of 7 lakh by March 2005. As on end 2003 ABN Amro Bank's Indian operations had assets worth Rs 10,000 crore. The bank aims to grow its retail portfolio to 50 per cent of its assets from the present 30 per cent.

The bank more recently launched private banking operations specifically targeting high net worth individuals, trusts and NRIs. The bank is looking at 80,000 potential clients with a minimum investible fund of over Rs 2 crore.