Citibank to open more centres in India

"We have obtained licence from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) a few months ago for starting the centers in Ludhiana and Coimbatore by the end of this financial year," Director (sales and marketing) P S Jayakumar told PTI here.

By including two more centres the bank’s total strength in India would touch 15 since there were already 13 centres, he said.

Pointing to a growth of total deposits to over Rs 12,000 crore, he said, "the robust growth has been mainly due to acceptance to modern technologies and customer servicing."

On plans to acquire a domestic bank, he said the bank’s intentions were conveyed to Finance Ministry when the Citibank’s group Vice President had met the ministry officials a few months ago and added that bank looked for 100 per cent equity.

"We are also exploring possibilities of distributing the insurance products through a corporate agency by January end and have plans to make it to sell and purchase mutual funds through Internet," Jayakumar said.

On the Non-Performing Assets (NPAs), he said the bank had a little over one per cent as against the average on nine per cent in the country.