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Exchange house -- Canara Bank pact with Oman group

Vimala Vasan

ABU DHABI, Nov. 20

CANARA Bank has entered into an agreement with the Al Mirza group in Oman for opening an exchange house that will be managed by officers deputed by the bank.

In the UAE, the eighth such branch of Al Razouki International Exchange Company, the bank's partner in the country, was also opened here on Monday.

Mr R.J. Kamath, Chairman and Managing Director of the bank, told Business Line that this was the first of Al Razouki's branches in Abu Dhabi. Six such branches had earlier been opened in Dubai and one in Sharjah. Managers and officers associated with Al Razouki were deputed by the bank.

With the planned opening of an exchange remittance facility in Oman after Ramadan, following signing of an agreement with the Al Mirza group, the total number of exchange companies in the Gulf region, managed by the bank's officials would total 17, he sa id.

Plans are also on to re-open a similar facility in Kuwait, which was closed during the Gulf War in the early 1990s and to open another facility in Bahrain. The bank has such facilities in Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

``These exchange houses mainly facilitate remittances by blue-collared Indian workers in the Gulf states. Our aim is to provide a wider access to such facilities for these expatriates,'' he said.

The volume of transactions through draft remittances was over Rs 1,200 crore per annum from the UAE alone, he added.

According to the agreement, Al Razouki's drafts issued on Canara Bank are instantly credited in more than 2,400 branches of the bank all over India. Al Razouki can also issue US dollar drafts payable at select offices of Canara Bank in India.

The company also offers door-to-door service for remittances in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.

Canara Bank, which has had a presence in the region since 1981, has an NRI deposit base of Rs 10,000 crore, out of a total deposit and advances base of around Rs 80,000 crore. The bank was targeting a total deposit base of Rs 55,000 crores this year, he said.

The bank was planning to dilute 67 per cent of its holding through a premium IPO offer by March, he said.