Dubai: Federal Bank, a private sector commercial bank based in south India is planning to expand its GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) presence through a branch in the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) and representative offices in Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar, Ganesh Sankaran, executive director of the bank, said on Sunday.
The bank currently has representative offices in Dubai and Abu Dhabi and has a non-resident Indian (NRI) deposit base of Rs360 billion, of which more than 80 per cent is from expatriates based in the Gulf countries. The bank currently attracts about 13 per cent of total NRI remittances into India and these form a major share of its total deposits.
The bank’s move to open a branch at DIFC is aimed at providing wholesale banking services to the NRI business community in the GCC and across the world. “We have the necessary permission from the Reserve Bank of India [RBI] to open a branch in the DIFC and are working on regulatory clearances to apply for the licence,” Sankaran said.
Given its wholesale banking business, the bank is looking to tap into business opportunities from the India-UAE business corridor. “While we provide financial assistance and advisory to clients back home, we now intend to offer the same level of services to NRI-owned firms and corporates in the Gulf region. The DIFC branch is the first step towards achieving this goal,” said Deepak Govind, deputy general manager and chief representative officer of Federal Bank in Dubai.
While the bank is an active participant in meeting the personal banking needs of NRI customers in India, it wants to participate in the financing needs of the NRI business community in terms of meeting their working capital, trade finance and business expansion funding both in India and the GCC.
The bank expects to open its Bahrain representative office before the end of this year. For Qatar and Kuwait representative office, the bank is in the process of seeking regulatory clearance from the RBI.
With its growing investments in digital banking offerings, the bank expects to reach out to more retail and wholesale NRI clients based across the GCC, Singapore, Canada, Australia, UK and UK.
“Digitisation of banking services have become a great enabler in offering our services to the Indian diaspora where we do not have a physical presence. We will continue to leverage digital channels to reach out to our NRI client base,” Sankaran said.
The bank currently has a diversified national footprint with a presence in states such as Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Punjab with a 1,252-strong branch network.
