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Journalism of Courage
With Indias growth story under cloud,state-owned banks are deliberately stepping up their international exposure,with specific focus on emerging economies of Asia and Africa. The primary objective is to hedge against the downside risks back home while simultaneously capitalising on the relatively higher growth potential that some of these foreign markets offer.
Bangalore-based Canara Bank,which has overseas operations in six countries,now plans to open branches or representative offices in Johannesburg,Qatar,Frankfurt,New York and Tokyo,according to S Raman,CMD of the state-owned bank.
Central Bank of India too has seen its joint venture in Zambia perform exceedingly well during a year when its performance in India was relatively subdued.
The bank has a joint venture in Zambia with holding of 20 per cent equity. It has performed well in all parameters during the year 2011-12. As on March 31,the total business stood at Rs 1,552.70 crore and the bank earned a net profit of Rs 36.14 crore, according to MV Tanksale,chairman of Central Bank.
Mumbai-based Bank of India too is in the process of setting up subsidiaries in Uganda,Botswana and Canada,and upgrading its representative offices at Johannesburg and Ho Chi Minh City to full-scale branches. Last year,the bank opened a wholly-owned subsidiary in New Zealand. For Bank of India,the efforts are aimed at perking up its already strong international operations,which showed a robust performance with year-on-year growth of 52 per cent in deposits and over 44 per cent in advances. Its overseas business comprising 49 branches and offices in 19 countries contributed about 25 per cent of its total business and about 24 per cent to the net profit.
Indian Overseas Bank has been actively pursuing the setting up of a banking subsidiary in Malaysia under a joint venture with Bank of Baroda and Andhra Bank. Bangalore-based Corporation Bank is exploring the possibility of opening branches in Hong Kong and Dubai in the near future while entry into emerging markets of Kenya,Zambia and Malaysia are in the pipeline,CMD Ajai Kumar said at the companys annual general meeting on June 29.
Taking a grim view of the macroeconomic situation back home,chairman of Indian Bank,TM Bhasin,said,The impact of weakening rupee,lack of investment,lower industrial growth,tight liquidity conditions and widening trade gap could further hurt GDP growth in 2012-13.
