United Bank of India Likely to Expand its Businesses in Overseas

Archana Bhargava, who is the new Chairperson and Managing Director (CMD) of the State-run United Bank of India, stated that her prime strategies to ensure the overall brand value of the bank would be a massive expansion plans in matters of overseas businesses.

She added that the bank would surely apply for around 8 to 10 overseas branch licenses from the parent body i.e. the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in the upcoming months. She didn’t neglect the fact that the profit margin of the overseas businesses for the bank has been low over the years.

On April 23 of this year Archana Bhargava has taken over the position of CMD of United Bank of India. Recently she had her first interactions with the media and press, and she handled it quite well in deed. Following is a small excerpt from what she actually said while interacting with the media.

“This (Overseas business expansion) will boost the image of the bank in many ways. Spreading overseas footprint will open up opportunities in non fund based and L/C businesses. There will be opportunities for our staff as they can look forward for overseas posting. We will look at virgin territories in South Africa, Mexico and the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) block.”

Bhargava is quite veteran, and she has an experience of 35 long years in banking world. The market experts are saying that she would be able to lead the UBI in right direction. She added some more points to justify her overseas plans. She said that although overseas the profit value of overseas business is relatively lower than other businesses but the NRI clients contribute to local business growth significantly over the past few years.

It has to be mentioned here that all major banks are exploring various ways to retain employees as they frighten exodus once RBI issues new banking licenses, which would benefit franchisees like India Post, RIL etc.

Here we have to understand that every banks need to be Basel 3 compliant with the backing of a robust capital adequacy to be eligible for applying for the overseas licenses. The honorable CMD of United Bank of India concluded by saying that her bank wanted to start the operation by the end May of this year only.

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