Union Bank to set up overseas branches in Doha, HK

Chennai, Jul 20: The Public Sector Union Bank of India would be foraying into Gulf and South East Asian countries by setting up its first overseas branch in Doha and Hong Kong, besides opening about 150 new branches in India in the current fiscal.

Announcing the first quarter results here today, Bank General Manager R Vishwanathan told reporters that the talks were in an advanced stage and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had given its approval for opening branches in Doha and Hong Kong.

''The local government's approval is awaited and the Bank's Executive Director had already held discussions with them. Both the branches will become operational by the end of March 2007'', he added.

This would be the Bank's maiden foray overseas as it had only a representative office in Dubai at present.

Mr Vishwanathan said of the 150 new branches, 66 would come up in the South -- 23 in Tamil Nadu, 18 in Kerala, 14 in Andhra Pradesh and 11 in Karnataka -- for which RBI had given its nod.

Most of the branches would be set up in urban and semi-urban areas.

New rural branches would also be opened in select cities like Coimbatore, he added.

To a question he said both the deposits and advances in the southern region grew by about 20 per cent and stood at Rs 10,500 crores and Rs 13,600 crore, respectively.

He said the bank would also be expanding its ATM network by doubling it to 1100 ATMS from the present 542, spread over 194 centres.

During the first quarter of the current fiscal, the Bank had tied up with Reuters for the product ''Reuters Trading for Foreign Exchange (RTFX)'', targetting the export and import community.

''Union Bank of India is the first among PSU banks in the country to offer RTFX product from Reuters. This will enable the Bank to offer tradable quotes in rupees against a range of foreign currencies for varying maturities online on real time basis without any transaction costs'', he added.

The Bank had also entered into an mou with SIDBI for joint lending to SMEs, he said.

UNI