National Australia Bank plans to expand Indian operations

To enter remittance segment to tap NRIs in Australia, New Zeland

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After establishing a base here in early 2012, National Australia Bank (NAB) is now looking to expand in the country. It intends to open a second branch in Delhi, for which it will soon approach the Reserve Bank of India.

To tap non-resident Indians in Australia and New Zealand, it also plans to enter the remittance segment.

Joseph Healy, group executive (business banking), NAB, said the bank's businesses, including assets and fee-based revenues, would be driven by bilateral trade and capital flows. The bank was looking to establish a base in Delhi, Healy said when asked about the bank's plans to expand operations in India.

For NAB, 2012-13 saw the first full year of operations in India. For that period, its advances stood at Rs 163 crore, with capital reserves of Rs 153 crore.

Two other banks from the Australia-New Zealand region—Commonwealth Bank of Australia and ANZ Bank—have operations in India.

On the economic environment in India, Healy said though the Indian economy had slowed, the bank wasn't looking at mere gross domestic product growth, adding long-term opportunities in India were immense. Many Australian companies hadn't considered engaging India, he said. If these entities didn't have an India strategy now, they would miss opportunities that unfolded in 10-15 years, he added.

NAB, which has strong retail presence in Australia, also plans to start private banking services and target these at Indian professionals working in the Australia and New Zealand region. The Indian community in Australia is about half-a-million strong. NAB would like to leverage its strength (retail presence in Australia), Healy said.

India and Australia have set a target of $40 billion in bilateral trade by 2015. Currently, trade is dominated by a narrow range of commodity exports to India, particularly coking coal, gold and copper ores. Engagement within the services sector is strong, particularly in the education, finance and information technology sectors. Investments by Indian companies in Australia have risen substantially in the last six years. Between 2006 and 2012, the total value of Indian investments in Australia rose from $609 million to $10 billion. In 2012, the total value of Australian investment in India stood at $5.7 billion.