 "A logo of the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) is reflected in the window of a branch office in London")
Royal Bank of Scotland, Britain’s largest state-owned bank, has started the process of closuring its 10 retail branches in India. This move is in line with the company’s plans that were announced last year to shut down its banking operations in the country.
“After examining a number of options for our banking business in India, we decided to wind down our corporate, institutional and retail banking businesses in India. We sold the onshore loans portfolio and initiated the corporate and institutional business exit earlier this year. We are now in a position to initiate a phased exit of our retail bank branches in India,” said a bank spokesperson.
The lender added they have started communicating to their customers their decision and how it was likely to impact them.
Earlier, the bank had sold off its private banking business to Sanctum Wealth Management. It had four private banking offices in India located at Mumbai, New Delhi, Bengaluru and Chennai.
At the end of December 2014, the net balance sheet exposure of the bank’s operations in India fell by £1.7 billion to £2 billion. This came on the back of reductions in corporate lending, particularly in the oil & gas and mining & metals sectors, and in lending to banks, largely trade finance. And after this, the bank announced its restructuring exercise as a part of its global strategy whereby it had decided to reduce its geographical footprint to approximately 13 countries, compared with 38 at the end of 2014.
However, the lender had made a decision to retain its back-office operations in India which is believed to employ over 10,000 people.
