Central Bank of India plans
international expansion
By Ankit Sharma
Rupee time
Nov 21, 2008
Public sector, Central Bank of India is planning to expand its
overseas presence and has sent a proposal for the same to the Reserve
Bank of India (RBI). The bank wants to start its representative
offices in five places including Singapore, Dubai, Doha, London
and Hong Kong.
The public lender has approached RBI to take permission for opening
offices in foreign countries. This is the first time bank is planning
to start an independent international venture after the 1970s scam,
when the bank was compelled by RBI to shut down its office in London.
Chairman and Managing Director of Central Bank, H A Daruwalla said,
"We are awaiting RBI's approval to expand our business overseas.
We would like to open there by the end of this financial year."
The bank plans to enhance its export-import business and NRE and
FCNR deposits from abroad and this new venture complements these
targets. As the rupee is depreciating, the banks are competing to
attract funds associated to trade and NRI deposits.
Presently the bank has only one international office which is in
combined ownership with Bank of India, Bank of Baroda and Government
of Zambia. Under this joint venture, each bank holds 20% stake while
the Zambian government holds the rest 40%.
The bank seems to be in its expansionary path on all directions
as it also plans to recruit 1,000 clerks by the end of the current
fiscal. It has recently upgraded its existing employees under various
positions. Around 2,000 clerical level employees have been promoted
to the probationary officers' cadre where as scale-II and III employees
are promoted directly to scale-IV and V respectively.
Even on the technology side, the bank has allocated funds worth
Rs 125-150 crore in order to execute the core banking services (CBS)
to 1,070 branches by the end of March 2009. Currently 700 branches
of the bank are under the CBS platform.
Mr. Daruwalla said, "Our aim is to become 100 percent CBS
compliant by March 2010."
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