South Indian Bank (SIB) is going to partner with Sri Lanka?s leading private sector bank?Hatton National Bank (HNB)?to gain greater access to Indian diaspora across the world.
SIB will very soon sign an MoU with HNB, which has branches and exchange houses in Canada, Abu Dhabi and some countries in the Middle East. The move is part of SIB?s drive to intensify its focus on non-resident Indian customers through tie-ups with other overseas banks. VA Joseph, managing director & CEO, SIB, told FE that the bank?s NRI customers can remit money to their SIB accounts in India using HNB?s network. SIB has already four existing exchange houses in the Middle East including Sharja, Dubai, Deira, Ras al khaimah which can similarly be used by HNB?s NRI customers. However, how costs will be shared is yet to be decided. ?After signing the MoU, it will be determined based on each bank?s customer base,? Joseph explained.
The bank will shortly introduce more NRI services in a bid to accelerate the remittance process. ?The objective of any such foreign partnership is customer acquisition and we will provide NRIs an opportunity to remit money into their accounts with us in India from more customer points. Moreover, the transfer of funds will be much faster,? the MD&CEO said.
At SIB, overseas fund remittances typically take 30 minute from anywhere in the world to SIB?s India accounts. The bank, moreover, is working on a mechanism which will reduce the time into seconds. Infosys is going to be their technology partner. ?Our NRI customers want more faster fund transfer- remittances. Living up to their expectations, we will be shortly introducing such mechanism in next 30 days,? said Joseph, who refused to divulge any more details. It is learnt that the bank is exploring options to partner with any banking major overseas to promote their NRI services further with new product innovations. As of March 19, 2010, SIB?s NRI customer base was 2.3 lakh strong while NRI deposits amounted to Rs 3,555 crore, up from Rs 3437 crore in 2009. The bank has grown its customer base by 92% and deposits by 27% since 2005. NRI deposits constitute 20-25% of the bank?s total deposits.