Standard Chartered trims India branches to 80, keeps RBI licenses
Standard Chartered just trimmed its India branch count from about 100 to 80 in the past year.
The bank says it's shifting focus toward wealth management and serving more affluent clients, as competing with local banks in regular retail banking is getting tougher.
Instead of closing up shop entirely, it has merged some branches and kept its RBI licenses handy for possible future use.
Standard Chartered plans 30 priority centers
Looking ahead, the bank wants to boost its priority banking centers from 20 to 30 by the end of 2026 and is putting more effort into digital services and relationship managers.
It has also sold its personal loan business to Kotak Mahindra Bank and agreed to transfer most credit cards to Federal Bank.
While other foreign banks like Citi and Deutsche are scaling back in India, HSBC is actually expanding, so the landscape is definitely changing for global banks here.