Private sector lender, Dhanlaxmi Bank is gearing up to increase its NRI deposit base. The bank has planned to raise the NRI deposits to Rs 1000 crore by the end of this financial year.

"We plan to take our NRI deposit base to around Rs 1,000 crore from the present Rs 400 crore by the end of FY11," Dhanlaxmi Bank Branch Banking & NRI Business Head Salil Datar said.

The NRI deposit base amounted to 5% of its total deposits last year and it wants to raise the figure to 10% by fiscal end.

As of March 2010, India is the largest recipient of foreign remittances in the world with a whopping USD 47.9 billion flowing in.

The first quarter of this fiscal saw the overall NRI deposit of the bank touch 48.21 billion dollars as compared to 41.44 billion dollars last year.

Datar also said that in order to attract more customers, the bank has increased its deposit rates for NRIs to 8 per cent recently.