The Australia and New Zealand Banking Group will continue its Asian expansion this year by re-entering the Indian market in the first quarter and opening more rural banks on the mainland.
ANZ chief executive Mike Smith unveiled the bank's expansion plan in an interview in the city yesterday. The plan follows the bank's spectacular acquisition of Royal Bank of Scotland's retail and commercial banking assets in six Asian countries for US$550 million in 2009, although that deal did not include India.
Smith said the bank would set up an Indian branch in Mumbai in the first quarter, which he described as a move to 'plug in the missing piece of the puzzle in Asia for ANZ as India will be another important market for ANZ in the region'.
The bank used to have an Indian presence until it sold Grindlays Bank to Standard Chartered in 2000.
Smith said the lender needed to 'learn how to walk before it can run' in India and would initially focus on its first Mumbai branch.
He would not rule out expanding in India through acquisition, but said the bank had no concrete acquisition plans at the moment. 'We would only conduct an acquisition if that could benefit ANZ in terms of financial and strategic development.'