SBI is planning to set up three branches in the initial phase and would focus more on NRI remittance and corporate lending business among other services, SBI’s Chief General Manager T C A Ranganathan said. SBI has 84 foreign offices in 32 countries.

Leading private-sector lender, HDFC Bank, also plans to ramp up its overseas operations. The bank has received all necessary regulatory approvals to set up a branch in Bahrain. “The Bahrain branch is ready to function and we expect it to be operational by August. We are planning many new offices this fiscal,” an HDFC official said.

The lender is understood to have plans to set up a branch in Hong Kong and a representative office in Kenya, he said. HDFC Bank already have representative offices in Dubai and Toronto. Country’s largest private sector lender, ICICI Bank plans to open four new offices in US, which would come up in California, New Jersey, Texas and Illinos.

New offers

ICICI Bank is present in 18 countries and had forayed into the US by setting up an office in New York. Many Indian banks, both in the private and public sectors, are now increasingly expanding their operations to overseas locations to garner more revenues.

Similarly, banks are also seeing high business potential in lending to small and medium-sized corporates by issuing Credit Linked Notes (CLNs) and the like on behalf of Indian corporates.  State-owned lenders like Punjab National Bank (PNB), Bank of Baroda and Bank of India have also chalked out plans to scale-up their overseas presence. While PNB plans to set up branches in Shanghai and Norway, a subsidiary in Canada and a representative office in Singapore this fiscal, the lender also plans to upgrade its existing repo office in Dubai, PNB’s Executive Director, J M Garg said. Leading state-owned lenders, BoB and BoI have also announced their plans to set up 10 overseas offices each this fiscal.

BoI has scheduled its foray to countries such as Cairo, Australia, New Zeland, Cambodia and Vietnam and would also open a repo office in Dubai.

Another public-sector lender, BoB, is also aiming to ramp up its overseas business by setting up 10 new branches in locations such as Canada, Russia, Mozambique, New Zealand and Cambodia.

The bank has also decided to convert its existing Australian representative office into a full-fledged branch, a BoB official said. “We are also looking at opening a representative office in China this fiscal year,” the official said.
The bank opened 11 new offices last fiscal in different locations such as Kenya, Tanzania, Trinidad and Tobago.