The State Bank of India (Canada) has decided to introduce new products and services to expand its reach among one million Indo-Canadians, the bank's president and chief executive officer Sunil K Tandon said on Friday.
"The focus right now is to enhance products and services, and more customer amenities at seven SBI (Canada) branches in Canada," Tandon said.
He said the bank has also been instrumental in fostering trade ties between India and Canada by extending financial, advisory and logistic support to corporations based particularly in Canada and India.
Tandon, who succeeds Arun Nagarajan, the outgoing president and CEO, said that the bank provides remittance of INR funds on close to real time basis through a network of over 12,300 offices of SBI, the largest commercial bank in the country.
Referring to commercial banking, Tandon said there was a 50 per cent growth in business loans, credit and finance from $226 to $332 million in the fiscal year ended June 30, 2010.
He said that a team of senior SBI officials visited Canada this month to explore ways and means to attract Canadian investment in India. The chairman of the bank has visualised that 25 per cent of the bank's business would be through international operations.
Meanwhile, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board said on Wednesday that it would continue investing in emerging markets, such as India, China and Brazil.
"We see that as an important area of focus for our funds," the board's chief executive officer David Denison said. "They're important markets for us to be involved with, learning, putting some capital to work".
