Mangalore-based public sector lender Corporation Bank is awaiting regulatory approvals to upgrade its overseas representative offices in Dubai and Hong Kong. The bank has sought approval from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to upgrade its overseas offices, a top Bank official said.
“We have filed application with the RBI seeking licence to upgrade our representative offices in Dubai and Hong Kong into full-fledged branches. We wish to convert them into branches as early as possible,” Ashwani Kumar, Executive Director, Corporation Bank said.
Currently, Corporation Bank does not have any branch abroad.
As the representative office cannot accept deposits and extend loans, the bank has entered into correspondence banking arrangements with some firms in Dubai and Hong Kong. The representative offices are presently acting as agents of the bank and route the business to home branches in India. They can source business and market the bank’s various services to customers in these two countries, a bank official said.
As far as domestic expansion is concerned Corporation Bank has also identified potential locations to open 300 branches in the country during 2012-13. Presently, it has over 1,500 branches and 12 zonal offices. It has 1,274 ATMs and 3,390 branchless banking units.
It has also opened 14 SME Loan Centres to cater to small and medium enterprises exclusively. The bank is looking at opening the 15 th centre in Tiruchirapalli on November 3, 2012, Kumar said.
As of September 2012, Corporation Bank’s advances were Rs 96,000 crore and deposits stood at Rs 143,000 crore, which represents about 17-18 per cent growth year on year, he added.
