IDBI Bank to foray overseas

Public sector IDBI Bank today said 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 told PTI here.

IDBI has 509 branches and 900 ATMs. It has also bagged necessary approvals from the Reserve Bank to open 200 additional branches to start during the current fiscal. 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 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 the Reserve Bank's permission with us to start operations in these geographies for over one year now," he said, adding that getting paper works ready and necessary approvals were coming in the way.

Public sector lenders State Bank of India and Bank of Baroda have sizeable presence overseas thorugh branches and representative offices. ICICI Bank is leading in the area among private sector banks.

Analysts believe that since Indian banks were less affected with the global financial crisis, they were in a better position compared to its 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.