Gabu

Leading state-owned lender Punjab National Bank (PNB) plans to acquire a small-sized bank in Kazakhstan in the near future as part of expanding its operations in the region, bank's General Manager Ajay Misra said here today.

"We expect to acquire Dana Bank of Kazakhstan in the near future. This is as part of expanding our operations in that country," Misra told PTI here.

As part of scaling up its overseas presence, the bank also has plans to set up subsidiaries in Canada and Kazakhstan over the next one year and is looking at regions like South Africa, Indonesia and Ghana for expansion later, he said.

The bank has decided to open subsidiaries in Canada and Kazakhstann and expect to receive the approval for Canada subsidiary by June, chief general manager Ranjan Dhawan said, adding the bank has set aside 25 million Canadian dollars to support the project.

At present, the bank has branches in Hong Kong, Kabul and Dubai and representative offices in Shang Hai and Dubai. It plans to upgrade the Shanghai repo office to a full fledged branch over the next one year and has applied to open branches in Norway and Austaralia in the near future, Dhawan said.

At present, PNB has four branches in Britain and also have joint venture operations in Nepal and Bhutan. It has a total branch strength of 4,836.

The bank expects to up the share of revenue from overseas business to 7 per cent over the next three years from 3.5 per cent now.

The bank today launched a few technology products including mobile banking, merchant acquisition business and remittances services abroad. The lender has also brought its entire branch strength under the core banking platform.

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