In a bid to expand its overseas footprint, Canara Bank plans to open offices

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in five countries, including Germany and Japan, during the current fiscal.

"We plan to set up offices in Japan, Germany, South Africa, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia," said Canara Bank Executive Director Archana S Bhargava.

A wholesale banking branch should come up next month in Bahrain, she said, adding that the bank has already got approval from regulators from both India and Bahrain.

The bank is also pursuing a licence from the US authorities to set up banking operations. The US application is at a very preliminary stage, she said after inaugurating a specialised government business branch here.

Currently, the bank has overseas branches in the UK, Hong Kong and China. In the UK, the bank has one branch each in London and Leicester. The total business of these four overseas branches aggregated $4,376 million for the financial year ended March, 2011.

It also has a joint venture with SBI in Moscow, Russia. The bank opened a representative office at Sharjah, in the UAE, last fiscal.

As far as domestic branch expansion is concerned, the bank plans to open 300 branches across various states in the country during 2011-12.

Currently, the bank has 3,300 branches and 2,508 ATMs in the country.

Asked about loan growth, Bhargava said the bank expects to witness credit growth of 18-20% during the current fiscal, even though it has been slack in the first four months of the current fiscal.

Last fiscal, the Bangalore-based bank witnessed a credit growth of 25%.

Deposit growth is expected to be around 22% during 2011-12, she added.

On net interest margins (NIM), she said the bank will try and keep this above 3% during the current financial year.