The bank had stopped its investment banking branch in 2001 owing to weak response during the period.
It then set up a wholly-owned subsidiary BoI Merchant Bankers in October last year to run the investment banking arm that aims to earn fees through IPO, qualified institutional placements (QIP), and domestic bond sales.
The Economic Times quoted a senior executive from the bank who spoke on the condition of anonymity: "We have received category-1 licence. So far, we have done some loan syndications, both offshore and onshore. We have also helped companies raise funds by selling commercial papers and short-term debt securities."
BoI was established in 1976 under the name of BoI Finance and handled loan syndication besides organizing over 50 IPOs.
Apart from BoI, the State Bank of India, which is the country’s largest bank, is the only other Indian public sector bank to have a presence in the sector.
Headquartered in Mumbai, BoI has 4545 branches across the country as on 31 December 2013, which includes 56 offices outside the country. It also has five subsidiaries, five representative offices and one joint venture.
