Canara Bank on Thursday said it has sold its stake in Russian joint venture Commercial Indo Bank LLC (CIBL) to the other venture partner State Bank of India (SBI) for about Rs 121.29 crore. CIBL, incorporated in 2003, is a joint venture in Russia between SBI (60 per cent) and Canara Bank (40 per cent).
Canara Bank, in a regulatory filing, said it has received the entire consideration amount equivalent to Rs 121.29 crore on Thursday for the sale of its stake. Canara Bank entered into the agreement for sale on November 11, 2022.
Apart from this bank, no other Indian banks have any branches in Russia. The county wise branches of Indian banks at overseas centres shows a total of 124 branches as on October 31, 2021. The joint venture entity Commercial Indo Bank calls itself the ‘only Indian bank in Russia‘. They operate like a local bank accepting local deposits and also offering term loans, export credit, LCs, housing loans etc. In fact, the joint venture is protected as they raise bulk of their resources especially deposits from the local Russian market.
As per RBI data, the UAE has the maximum branches (17) followed by Singapore (13) , 9 each in Hong Kong and UK and 8 each in US, Mauritius and Fiji Islands. In addition, there are also no representative offices of Indian banks in Russia. There are currently 38 representative offices of Indian banks in countries like UAE, UK, Hong Kong etc.