The Hindu Business Line : City Union Bank inks pact with Sri Lanka’s Hatton

Coimbatore, Jan. 19 The Kumbakonam-headquartered City Union Bank (CUB) and the Hatton National Bank (HNB) in Sri Lanka have inked an agreement for setting up a joint venture ‘Investment Banking’ operation in India.

The memorandum of understanding was signed by the CUB Chairman, Mr S. Balasubramanian, and the Managing Director of HNB, Mr Rajendra Thengarajah, at Kumbakonam last week.

The joint venture, which is subject to regulatory approval, is expected to be incorporated during the course of the year (Both CUB and HNB have indicated that they would be applying to the respective regulators such as the RBI, Central Bank of Sri Lanka, SEBI and others to invest in the proposed joint venture).

Speaking to Business Line, Mr Balasubramanian said each of the partners would be investing about Rs 2 crore to Rs 25 crore initially (after getting the nod from the respective regulators).

“We will eventually scale it up to Rs 5 crore each, based on the needs. We are preparing the documents for submission.”

Underserviced area

Stating that the investment banking arena in India, particularly for the growing mid-sized corporates, was grossly underserviced, he said “there is enormous potential for a focused investment banker in this space.

HNB has the expertise in this area and our tie-up with Doha Bank would go a long way in helping NRI clients who look for such services.”

CUB, meanwhile, is in the process of finalising some services such as personal banking and wealth management to its bouquet of offerings. “This will be known within the next 2-3 weeks,” Mr Balasubramanian said.

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