State Bank of India (SBI) has received approval from the Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA) to launch corporate banking services from its unit office, Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) – reported Zawya.com.
The India-based public sector bank had begun its operations in UAE two years ago with a Category IV licence. That licence permitted it to carry out only certain operations such as arranging and advicing of financial services.
In an interview with Khaleej Times, Vidyasagar, CEO of SBI, said: Now we have been granted Category I licence by the UAE authorities, and we will be able to involve in the entire gamut of corporate finance operations like lending and accepting deposits from corporate houses, reported the newspaper.
Of course there are some restrictions like we can do business only in other currencies and not in dirhams. Also, we can accept deposits only from outside markets, and not from the local market. But even within those constraints we hope to achieve a reasonable level of business. The Indo-UAE trade is currently worth about $30 billion dollars annually, and if we are able to hav e8 to 10 per cent share it will be a good business. We will be concentrating on trade finance, though we will be offering other corporate banking services as well, he added.
