The largest foreign lender in India, Standard Chartered Bank is contemplating on the idea of setting up a wholly owned subsidiary in India and thus receive all benefits received by local private banks from Reserve Bank of India.

India holds prime importance for StanChart as around a fifth of the total revenues of the bank comes from the country. Furthermore, with developed economies, targetting emerging economies as next center for growth, India appears as a vital point of development for StanChart in Asia.

"We are definitely serious in evaluating a subsidiary," said Neeraj Swaroop, chief executive of India and South Asia. "It is still too early to commit or comment. We are definitely looking at it very positively."

"Given where we are, we would love to have more branches," Mr Swaroop said. "Except that we want branches in metropolitan tier-1, tier-2 cities as well, in addition to the tier-3 to 6."