India's third largest lender, Bank of India (BoI), is planning to open up a representative office in Qatar. For achieving that task, however, they need the permission of the Qatar Central Bank (QCB), which they have applied for.

Mr. K.R. Kamath, Executive Director of the Bank of India, had recently met Qatar QCB Governor Mr Sheikh Abdullah bin Saoud al-Thani when he had gone on an official visit to Qatar. The meeting was to seek permission to open up the office.

Mr Kamath, who had assumed the charge as the Executive Director on 19 May 2006 said that the bank had already received the Indian banking regulator's permission to set up a representative office in Qatar.

"I have met the QCB Governor and submitted our application for the Doha representative office. I am hopeful the Qatari authorities will consider our application favourably," he was quoted as saying in Gulf Times.

Howver, Mr Kamath made the banks’ intentions clear saying the bank was not looking at the possibility of entering the Qatar Financial Centre. "That's not the kind of business we are looking at in Qatar. We wish to do retail business here," he said. He also added that it would open its first representative office in the GCC region in Dubai next month as it has already received a licence for the Dubai office.

Before joining BoI, Mr. K.R. Kamath was a General Manager in Corporation Bank since 2002, in charge of Information Technology, Information Security, Management Information System and Integrated Risk Management.

BoI boasts of having online remittance facility to some 2,000 branches across the country. The Bank has 2644 branches in India spread over all states/ union territories including 93 specialised branches. These branches are controlled through 48 Zonal Offices. There are 24 branches/ offices (including three representative offices) abroad. Indian expatriates in Qatar can avail of speed remittance facility to these and another 30,000 branches of other Indian banks through Almana Exchange's two Doha branches.

The bank also has access to Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS), a nationwide computer link owned by Reserve Bank of India.