Doha Bank, the second largest Qatari lender, will be opening its first branch in Mumbai next month and has set a target of $5 billion balance-sheet by the third year of operations in India.
The bank got permission from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to open the branch last December. Initially, the bank would open a branch in South Mumbai with a workforce of around 50 people, said R. Seetharaman, Chief Executive Officer, Doha Bank Group. According to Dr. Seetharaman, the bank will offer retail and corporate banking solutions to start with. On expansion plans he said that the next branch would be opened in Kerala considering the bank’s long association with that market. However, this depends on when the RBI allows it to open the next branch, since foreign bank licences come as bilateral reciprocity.
