Emirates NBD, a leading banking group in the Middle East North Africa and Turkey (Menat) region, has announced plans for further expansion in India, following approval from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to open two additional branches.

The announcement reflects India’s growing importance to Dubai’s biggest bank by assets as the United Arab Emirates (UAE) continues to strengthen long-standing strategic and economic ties with India. The bank will open a full-service branch in Gurugram and Chennai to cater to both the northern and southern markets of India. The enhanced geographic coverage will enable Emirates NBD to facilitate larger volumes of trade and capital flows between the two countries as well as the larger MENAT region.

Emirates NBD inaugurated its first full-fledged branch in the country’s commercial centre, Mumbai in 2017, marking the sixth country where Emirates NBD has in-shore presence after UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Singapore, and the United Kingdom. The branch offers a range of services to corporate, SME and institutional clients including trade finance, treasury services, bilateral and syndicated loans in addition to supporting NRI (non-resident Indian) customers looking for cross-border wealth management solutions. The young India branch operations has already delivered a promising start, turning profitable in its first full year of operation and growing its corporate and trade assets and NRI deposits

Hesham Abdulla Al Qassim, VC and MD of Emirates NBD, commented: “As bilateral relations between the UAE and India continue to strengthen, Emirates NBD is delighted to expand its offering to Indian businesses and individuals looking to invest and do business in the MENAT region. In addition to a shared economic vision and compatible regional outlooks, the UAE and India are each other’s largest trading partners, positioning Emirates NBD as the only UAE-based bank with physical presence across all of India’s important trade corridors across the MENAT region and through to Asia and the United Kingdom.”

Indians constitute the largest expatriate community in UAE and a more than a third of Emirates NBD’s customer base are Indian expats. The bank‘s 60-second online funds transfer service to India, DirectRemit, has facilitated over Dh5 billion of NRI remittance flows to date this year.