Standard Chartered Bank introduces 'Private Banking'

Kolkata, Apr 10 (UNI) In keeping with the growing international trend, the Standard Charterted Bank has decided to introduce 'Private Banking' in India this year for its High Networth customers.

Announcing this StanChart Bank Chief Executive Officer (CEO), India, Neeraj Swarup here today said after meeting with success in Hong Kong, Singapore, Dubai and South Korea they had now decided to bring in 'the same concept in India this year exclusively for high networth individuals having a mininmum deposit of Rs two million in the bank for enjoying customised service in all banking transactions'.

Claiming it as to be a unique concept in the Indian banking industry so far, Mr Swarup claimed that like elsewhere in the world it would open a new vista in personalised banking services for HNI in the country which would be at par with the best in the world.

He said, however, the Private Banking would not only be introduced in all the present 81 StanChart bank branches in 31 Indian cities at present, but would also be featured in 29 new branches which would soon come up following the receipt of necessary approval from the RBI.

About their other future plans, Mr Swarup said they were also looking for the right opportunity to make forays into the Equity Broking business and had decided to set up a new company under joint venture with substantial stakes for this purpose. The Bank had even identified the UTI Securities for this purpose, he said replying to a related query.

"We are also planning to form an Asset Reconstruction Company (ARC) by this year end in association with a number of Indian Public sector Banks", the Stanchart Bank CEO said adding that among their probable partners in this 49:51 joint venture would be the UCO Bank, Indian Bank and Jammu and Kashmir Bank with whom talks were still on.

Asked about the expected growth of the bank during the just ended last fiscal, Mr Swarup said as the second largest foreign bank in India they expected to maintain the similar business growth of around 20 per cent in 2006-07 like the past five years as the Bank's CAGR continued to grow by about 22 per cent per annum during the same period.

To another query he said during the last fiscal the Bank experienced 30 per cent growth in credit and 20 per cent in terms of Deposit growth.

However,the Bank's exposure in retail credit was a little less than the previous year,though the overall revenue was expected to generate by more than 22 per cent he pointed out.

UNI