Announcing this at a press conference here, Romesh Sobti, chief executive of ABN-Amro Bank in India said that with effect from October 25, deposit and loan portfolio of nearly Rs 800 crore each would come under the fold of ABN-Amro Bank from Bank of America.

Sobti said that a major portion of the loan portfolio consisted of Bank of America's healthy retail auto loan portfolio. "The takeover will propel ABN-Amro Bank into a new orbit of the Indian consumer banking industry," he said.

The bank is now planning to launch new products like loans against equity by December 1999, and personal loans, debit cards, and mortgage loans by March 2000. The bank intends to launch credit cards sometime late next fiscal, said Sobti.

The takeover of the BankAm's Indian retail banking was a part of ABN-Amro's under $200-million acquisition spread over India, Taiwan and Singapore.