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PNB eyeing acquisition of bank in Kazakhstan
Punjab National Bank was scouting for acquisition of a bank in Kazakhstan as part of its plans to expand its presence, a top Bank executive said on Saturday.
Punjab National Bank was scouting for acquisition of a bank in Kazakhstan as part of its plans to expand its presence, a top Bank executive said on Saturday.
"There are lot of opportunities (in Kazakhstan). A high level delegation has visited the place and it is very much on our radar (for acquisitions)" Punjab National Bank Executive Director Nagesh Pydah told reporters in Chennai.
Presently, PNB has a representative office at Almaty in Kazakhstan.
The bilateral trade between India and Kazakhstan stood at USD 5.5 billion, he said.
To a query, Pydah said it would have a controlling stake in any bank which it was planning to acquire. "We will acquire 51 per cent stake in a bank (when we acquire)," he said.
In addition to this, the Bank would open a 100 per cent subsidiary in Vancouver and would convert its representative office at Dubai to a branch.
PNB, which entered the credit card businesses in February this year, has managed to issue 70,000 cards.However,PNB was doing businesses of Rs 4000 crore from 40 million customers and many areas in credit card business were "untapped". For this purpose, PNB has shortlisted a vendor to offer end-to-end solutions and by Feb next "it will be operational", he said.