Union Bank plans overseas arms

Coming out of its self-imposed shell, Union Bank of India, the fifth largest public sector bank in the country, is moving forward to opening branches overseas. The bank has over 2,000 branches across India, but no branch overseas.

"The Indian market has been too buoyant. There were hardly any scope to look beyond the boundary," the newly-appointed CMD of the bank M V Nair told PTI in Mumbai on Wednesday. "Opprotunities are cropping up now, thanks to globalisation and the growing aspiration of the Indian Inc to look beyond the horizon," he adedd.

However, the bank has received approval from the Reserve Bank of India to open two branches in Doha and Hong Kong. It has bagged the central bank's nod to open two representative offices in Dubai and Shanghai.

"Negotiations were on at advanced stages with respective local authorities," Nair said but could not specify timeframe by when the bank would have made its presence felt in new geographies.

"We are awaiting the approval of the respective local authorities. We will move forward as soon as we get their permission," he added.

In his recent tour, the chairman met the heads of Central Bank of Abu Dhabi and Qatar. "Discussions were very positive," Nair said.

Union bank has RBI permission to open another 30 branches in the current year.

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