Bahrain Tribune
  
 
Bahrain, May 28: A top Indian bank is to open an office in Bahrain, further boosting the country's status as a financial hub.

Kerala's State Bank of Travancore (SBT) announced on Friday  that it is working to have a presence in the Kingdom as soon as possible.

"We have decided to open an exchange house in Bahrain to provide more service for our customers there," K. Sitaramam, Managing Director of SBT, told reporters in Thiruvananthapuram.

The company also announced they are to open a representative office in both Saudi Arabia and Dubai.

SBT currently has rupee drawing arrangements with 16 exchange houses in the Middle East and manages exchange houses in the UAE (four) and Sultanate of Oman (two).

The bank has also introduced an SMS alert system to keep non-resident Indian (NRI) customers updated with their account status via mobile phones.
 
"In the previous fiscal (2004-05), there was negative growth of non-resident deposits, but in the last fiscal (2005-06) non-resident deposits grew by 9.59 percent over the year ended March 31, 2005, to touch Rs 78.75 billion" added Sitaraman.