ABN Amro , India which will be soon rechristened as Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) is actively considering an acquisition in India in a bid to expand its footprint in the country.
Meera Sanyal, country executive, ABN Amro India said, ?We have decided to acquire a bank in India only after March 2009 and are waiting for the regulatory regime to become more conducive to do so. Although we have not yet identified a potential bank for the proposed takeover, such a buyout is very much on our agenda.? In the past, India based country heads of foreign banks like HSBC, Citibank and Standard Chartered too have hinted a possibility of an acquisition in the Indian banking space after the year 2009 when Reserve Bank of India is expected to revamp the existing norms which may allow foreign banks to pick up higher stakes in domestic banks.
Currently RBI regulations donot allow any foreign banks to pick up more than 5% in any domestic banks without its specifc approval.
As on date; HSBC, ABN Amro, Standard Chartered and Citibank have 47, 28, 90 and 40 branches in the India. The branch network of these foreign banks is mostly spread across metro or tier 1 cities of the countryand thus lacks presence in the country?s tier 2 or feeder cities that generate maximum retail or small to medium enterprise segment business.
As reported by FE earlier, YES Bank CEO Rana Kapoor and IndusInd Bank CEO Romesh Sobti had said that they are not averse to offload a substantial stake of their respective banks in favour of a foreign player in future if allowed by the regulator. On getting re-branded as RBS in India post the acquisition of ABN Amro in the year 2007, Sanyal said she is in constant touch with the RBI on this issue.
?Such an exercise is inevitable to present ABN Amro as a global player among the corporate customers in India. The entire re-branding process may take up to mid-next year,? she said.