New Delhi: Bank of China will now have operating offices in India after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Wednesday issued licences approving the application, the second Chinese bank to be operating in the country.
Several foreign banks, including the Bank of China, had earlier in the year sought RBI’s permission to set up operations in the country.
As on 1 January, 2018 Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd was operating in India along with 45 other foreign banks. The United Kingdom’s Standard Chartered has the highest, 100 branches in India as of now.
Security clearances for the bank had been given earlier.
The decision to allow Bank of China to start operations was reached at a meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the sidelines of the SCO summit.
Bank of China, which is listed on the Hong Kong and Shanghai stock exchanges and has a market capitalisation of $158.6 billion, will be the second Chinese bank to secure a licence to open a branch in India.
Among those who had applied for permission to open a branch or office in the country were three banks from Iran, two from South Korea, one each from Malaysia and the Netherlands.
Bank of China is one of the four major state-owned banks in China, and is considered the second biggest in the country by assets. It does not have any branches in India yet, despite many of its corporate clients having extensive operations in India.
Among the Iranian banks that have sought nods from the RBI were Bank Pasargad, Parsian Bank and Saman Bank.
The two Korean banks that have sought to open their first branches are Kookmin Bank and Nonghyup Bank. Maybank of Malaysia, whose application for opening a branch in India was rejected, has put in a re-application, while ING Bank of Netherlands has sought to set up a representative office here.
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