Bank of Baroda: The Indian bank turns 112

Gulf News

Full Article here: See more at https://gulfnews.com/videos  Bank of Baroda: As the Indian bank turns 112 in India and 45 in the UAE, Gulf News takes a trip down the memory lane of the bank

Transcript

00:00The Bank of Baroda was established in 1908 and we started in Princely State at Baroda

00:10by Sajji Rao Gaikwad III and then it expanded its wings to other parts of India and then

00:19we started our first international operation in Kenya and Mombasa.

00:25From there, wherever Gujaratis migrated, the bank has started its operations in the highest

00:35number of countries, 25 countries with 110 branches.

00:40Then subsequently the bank has shut down some of the non-viable operations in five countries,

00:48one where single, single, one, one branch was there and it was not viable.

00:52So like Bahrain, Bahrain we failed to shut down, like that similarly some more branches

00:59we have shut down and the bank is in the process of shutting down some more operations.

01:05But all viable and which are doing well, bank is continuing its operations, bank is committed

01:13to continue.

01:14As I told you, wherever Gujaratis migrated to different parts of the world, bank also

01:21travelled.

01:22In the same way, bank has felt the Gujarati community has reached Dubai.

01:31So bank has started its first branch in 1974 in Dubai, the balance of this only one street

01:39used to be there, what I could gather, it started in a small setup.

01:46Then bank has travelled to Abu Dhabi in 1975, then subsequently in 1977 to Sharjah, these

01:56three were the prominent places for Bank of Gurdwara for quite a long time.

02:00Then we started our branch in Dera and subsequently we went to Rasal Khema and last one was L.N.

02:09branch.

02:10People like Bharatbhai Shah, who is no more now, he is to be very vocal for NRI community,

02:18he passed away recently, people like him bought this bank in fact to UEE at that time.

02:28But bank has never felt it belongs to a particular community or a particular religion or a particular

02:37caste or creed.

02:38We are here to serve the residents of UEE, more particularly whether it is a Imrati or

02:44a non-Imrati, we serve across, we don't have a differentiation.

02:49Even we love to hear Imratis, old timer Imratis, when I have an interaction, they ask me, why

02:58are you telling Bank of Baroda, it is a Baroda bank.

03:01When I have to go to school, I have to see the Baroda bank, I have to go from the front

03:07of this Baroda bank, you don't tell Bank of Baroda, we don't like that.

03:11So that is the kind of the bank has, its reputation here and at that time one thing is very imminent

03:24here pertinent to note, the Bank of Baroda reached UEE before Central Bank of UEE was

03:32set up.

03:33And first honorary CEO of Central Bank is from Bank of Baroda's CEO, Meenakshi Sundaram.

03:40He was the person behind the setting up Central Bank of UEE also.

03:44He was the honorary member or whatever that designation, he was given that position to

03:49set up Central Bank of UEE under the guidance of government of UEE.

03:56After I got started banking, going to bank and interacting with the banks, from that

04:03time if you see present banking, it totally changed.

04:08At that time you have to go to branch, even if you want anything, it used to be highly

04:14difficult either in India or in UEE, it used to be quite challenging, things were not so

04:22easy.

04:23We used to spend considerable time to even to withdraw money or to deposit or to get

04:32their passbook updated and various, if you have to remit money, they have to take a DD

04:39to get the DD, again they have to go, they will send it, it will go to clearing.

04:43It used to take a considerable time, it used to be a nightmare for people.

04:49But today with the click of mouse, even yesterday I was sharing to my customers, you have two

04:55apps, one is the India NRI app, one is the app of UEE Bank of Baroda, from your mobile

05:03just give a click and within no time you will see the credit in your mobile, you got the

05:10credit in India.

05:12So that is the technology that it has reached, within even the confirmation of debit may

05:20not come but the confirmation of credit is reaching your mobile, in mobile wallet.

05:24So that is the power of technology today.

05:27I would like to share one thing, Bank of Baroda is in comparison to other banks in UEE, we

05:36may be lagging somewhere in technology front.

05:40But we are committed in serving the customer with one-to-one and personal touch we serve,

05:50that is one of the very important element in our service.

05:56In UEE we have 1,35,000 customers, we used to be more banking on the trade finance and

06:06corporate banking but nowadays in the last two years we felt why we should not focus

06:16on the retail front.

06:17So that is one of the very, very giving a personal touch and important lines of business

06:23that it gives a connectivity to individual and when we started at that time our portfolio

06:30was very, very dismal but now in the last one and half year we have tripled our portfolio

06:38and we are doing a quite encouraging business in the retail segment.

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