In an interview to Anita Bhoir, Khan emphasized India’s importance as a key market for Barclays. He expects the retail business to grow by 25 to 30 per cent across product categories and is optimistic that the $745 million acquisition of Russian bank bank will complement its emerging markets business. Excerpts:

It has been eight months since Barclays launched its banking services in India. How is the business doing?

However, we are growing at a healthy pace. We are looking to grow at about 25 per cent to 30 per cent in product categories such as card loans.

The bank has a customer base of about six lakh, of which five lakh are credit card customers. Credit card is a growing business for us. Moreover, it gives us cross-selling opportunities. In spite of being a late entrant, we are catching up.

Our aim is to increase the share of emerging markets in the bank’s global profits by adding newer geographies and growing the business in existing markets. Emerging markets contribute around 10 per cent to our global profits. We would enter the high growth economies, expand the business inorganically and build a franchise.

How is the Reserve Bank’s branch restriction policy affecting your growth?

We currently have five branches. Branch restriction is a concern. But we are working within the scope of RBI regulations. To work around this, we have launched mobile banking in India. India is the first market where we have launched this service. The service will now be replicated in UAE and Kenya.

The retail market in India is seeing a slowdown. Many players are scaling down their unsecured businesses. How are you approaching this and have you experienced any losses?

We have good credit initiation systems. We make sure that we get the right customers and ensure that losses are manageable.

The acquisition of the Russian bank Expobank, apart from our strong retail, commercial banking and small and medium enterprises businesses, adds to our analytical and mathematical skills. These skills can be transported to India.