BOI to be first Indian bank in China

Bank of India, one of the first Indian banks to venture into China, on Monday made a formal request to the regulatory authority in Beijing to allow it to upgrade its representative office in Shenzhen into a full-fledged bank and also open another representative centre in Beijing.

"We have formally submitted a request to the China Banking Regulatory Commission for converting our Shenzhen representative office into a full-fledged bank," P L Gairola, executive director of BOI, told PTI. "We want to be the first Indian bank to have full-fledged banking operations in China," he said.

Gairola noted that BOI, which opened its representative office in the booming southern Chinese city of Shenzhen in January 2003 is now qualified to be upgraded into a full-fledged bank under Chinese banking norms for foreign banks.

"The Chinese response has been quite positive," Gairola said while commenting on his meeting in Beijing with a senior CBRC official.

He also said that the CBRC official promised to give a positive consideration to BOI's request to open a branch office in Beijing.

When CBRC approves BOI's application for a full-fledged bank, the Beijing RO, for which the bank has applied, could be converted into a branch office, he said. If approved, BOI would be the first Indian bank to open an office in Beijing.