The public sector IDBI Bank said today it will start operations in Dubai, Singapore and Beijing to establish its presence abroad and facilitate Indian corporates raise overseas funds.
“We will be opening one branch each in Dubai and Singapore. We also plan to start a representative office in Beijing,” IDBI Bank Chairman and Managing Director Yogesh Agarwal said.
IDBI has 509 branches and 900 ATMs. It has also bagged necessary approvals from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to open 200 additional branches to start during the current financial year. It has, however, no overseas presence, so far.
“Apart from catering to the Indian corporates for raising funds overseas, the trigger to start operations beyond the country's border is to establish our foreign presence, an area which we have thus far neglected,” he said.
Agarwal said that the bank hoped to receive approvals from the respective local governments in the next one to two months and start operations immediately.
“We have had the RBI's permission with us to start operations in these geographies for over one year now,” he said, adding that getting the paper work and necessary approvals ready were causing delay.
Public sector lenders State Bank of India and Bank of Baroda have sizeable presence overseas thorugh branches and representative offices. ICICI Bank is leading among private sector banks.
Analysts believe that since the Indian banks were less affected with the global financial crisis, they were in a better position compared to their international peers to go global and even acquire banks abroad.
Agarwal, however, said that IDBI Bank was not looking at acquisitions abroad at the moment.
