Singapore, Mar 16: One of India's leading private sector banks, ICICI Bank, is set to open a branch in Singapore and moves are underway to expand in the US, UK, Canada, China and Dubai. The bank is awaiting a nod from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to begin operations in the country.
"We already have got the clearance from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and now we are waiting for an approval from MAS. If that comes soon we can start operation by mid-year," K V Kamath, chairman, ICICI Securities said on the sidelines of an investor's conference here. The conference 'India Unlimited' was jointly organised by ICICI Securities and Singapore Stock Exchange.
The bank sees a lot of potential business from Indians living abroad. "Overseas expansion is prompted from the fact that our NRI incremental deposits and trade accounts currently constitute about 25-30 per cent of the total deposits," said Kamath. "As part of our overseas expansion programme, apart from the proposed branch in Singapore, we have recently obtained approval from RBI for setting up subsidiaries in UK and Canada and representative offices in China and Dubai," said Lalita D Gupta, joint managing director ICICI Bank.
Bureau Report