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Kerala-Based Bank Boosts NRI Offering

Vanessa Doctor

12 September 2010

Dhanlaxmi Bank is working to expand its non-resident Indian deposit base to Rs1,000 crore by the end of the fiscal year, the Economic Times reports.

The Kerala-based bank presently has a Rs400 crore NRI deposit base. Last fiscal year, NRIs comprised around 5 per cent of the company's total deposits, a proportion the bank wants to increase to about 10 per cent by the end of the 2011 fiscal year.

"The company gets almost 95 per cent of its NRI business from the Gulf markets," Salil Datar, branch banking and NRI business head, told the publication. Salil hopes that the bank's recent decision to increase deposit rates for NRIs to 8 per cent would result in an influx of new clients. In addition, the company is also reportedly preparing to offer portfolio investment services to NRIs.