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Tuesday, March 23, 2010

HATTON NATIONAL BANK & KERALA BASED SOUTH INDIAN BANK - DISCOVER SYNERGY IN BANKING

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Few communities from two countries could be as similar in lifestyles as Keralites and Sri Lankans, with parallels ranging
from plantation lifestyles and love for sport, to migration patterns and remittances. The Gulf countries alone are estimated to have roughly a million Sri Lankan expatriates and about 2.5 million Keralite expatriates.

Sensing that Kerala-Sri Lanka synergies go far beyond coconut oil and banana chips, Kerala-based South Indian Bank (SIB) and Colombo-headquartered Hatton National Bank (HNB), have signed an MoU that will benefit their respective customers, primarily in the Gulf countries.

South Indian Bank MD & CEO VA Joseph said the tie up would be a “mutually beneficial agreement to offer banking services to our respective customers, that will foster trade-related, cross-border business facilitation”. Accordingly, customers of HNB can utilize the services of the Hadi Express Exchange in the UAE managed by SIB, and SIB customers can transact through exchange houses of HNB in Oman and the UAE.

Keralite and Sri Lankan expatriates are both known for their prolific remittances from around the world, and particularly from the Gulf region, and despite the economic crisis in the region, remittances to Kerala and Sri Lanka have not been acutely affected.

According to the statistics of the State Level Bankers’ Committee, NRI deposits in Kerala banks at the end of September 2009 stood at Rs 37,454 crore. In Sri Lanka, annual remittances are estimated at $3.5 billion. HNB managing director Rajendra Theagarajah said remittances to Sri Lanka had shown an increase of 12% in 2009 over 2008 despite the challenging global economic situation.

SIB and HNB are likely to extend their operational synergies to more countries in future, one of them being Canada where there is a large Sri Lankan expat community and a considerable Keralite population.

Joseph said among the plans chalked out were training programmes for HNB staffers in Thrissur, and an exposure for SIB officials in Colombo in future. Theagarajah said his bank looked forward to intellectual capital development between the two banks in the coming years.

SIB is hoping to end this fiscal with a business volume of Rs 39,000 crore, higher than its targeted volume of Rs 36,000 crore, and HNB, Sri Lanka’s largest private sector bank, has plans to expand its international remittance house presence from the present locations at Muscat, Abu Dhabi and Toronto, to more locatiotions.

source - http://economictimes.indiatimes.com