By IANS,
Kolkata : Public sector Indian Overseas Bank (IOB) is planning to raise $350 million through medium term notes (MTNs) in the next three to six months, a top official of the bank said Tuesday.
“We have seen that there is a good appetite in the international market. That made us confident of tapping the source once again,” IOB CMD M. Narendra said at an interactive session organised by the Indian Chamber of Commerce here.
The bank raised $500 million last month by way of senior unsecured bonds under its MTN programme of $1 billion through its Hong Kong branch.
IOB was the first bank to come up with fund raising programme through MTN.
“Although our initial issue size was $1 billion, we preferred to raise $500 million initially. We can go to the market again in next three to six months,” he said.
Narendra said the bank has already applied to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for necessary licenses to open branches in Dubai and China.
“We are looking at rendering banking services in Africa and a few other Asian countries. The target is to push our business from international operations to 15 percent of total business from 10 percent currently,” he said, adding that the bank was planning to enter Malayasia soon through a joint venture with Bank of Baroda and Andhra Bank.