Canara Bank has entered South Africa by opening a branch in Johannesburg as a part of its global expansion plans.
The bank has 4,750 branches across India apart from a presence in London, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Bahrain and Moscow.
"1,027 branches were added only last year across the country and this year we are opening another 1,200 branches as we move the bank away from being just in the south of India," said Rajiv Dubey, Chairman and Managing Director of Canara Bank at the launch today.
"We have big expansion plans abroad besides domestic expansion. We have plans for Durban, Cape Town, Pretoria, and deep into South Africa as well.
"We will target not only the Indian diaspora and PIO's (Persons of Indian Origin) but also the local population. We are doing this in Hong Kong and London in a big way. Our overseas business has gone up from 2 per cent to 6 per cent in one year and we are confident of hitting the 10 per cent mark."
Dubey said the bank would use the experience of opening 18 per cent of its branches last year in rural and semi-rural areas of India and South Africa.
"We opened 263 branches in unbanked areas where viability takes time but we found to our surprise that the business per branch was much more than what we had expected. With that belief, we are going into the new areas in South Africa also."
Dubey said there are plans to go into Tanzania and Mozambique in Southern Africa as well as Germany, Dubai, Mexico, Australia and New Zealand.
These are among 20 proposals which have already been approved by the Reserve Bank of India. A branch in New York will be opened next month.
