Inspired by a challenging spirit and an unyielding desire to create a sound and reliable network of correspondent relationships, the bank has placed great emphasis towards it growth. Accomplishing something for the first time requires a special focus. It demands foreseeing possibilities. In our endeavor, to do so, we successfully surmounted problems and difficulties arising out of issues relating to weak economic conditions of the economy and a continuous deteriorating status of country risk.

The incertitude and skepticism of the international banking community towards financial institutions from emerging markets remained intact. Our persistence during the past four years allowed us to make significant inroads into the arena of correspondent banking. Large international banks, after critically evaluating us, agreed to enter into relationship.

During 2002 we added 81 banks to our network of correspondents, bringing the total number to over 170. Of these relationships, there are now several banks that rank amongst the top financial institutions in the world. Our geographical coverage now extends to over 100 countries, which is adequately compatible with our trade flows.

Our correspondents, during the year extended us unqualified support, which enabled us to undertake a healthy quantum of foreign trade business. There are many challenges ahead for the bank, in the coming year, our bank will not only continue to review its efforts on existing correspondents to make the relationship more beneficial, but will also add more correspondents to establish a comprehensive international network to facilitate our customer’s transaction as well as the Bank’s proprietary needs.

We have provided against the list of correspondents their world and country rankings. These rankings have been taken from The Bankers Almanac – July 2001 issue.

We would like to emphasize that correspondent arrangements do not necessarily imply the existence of account relationship. We are in the process of rationalizing our current nostro account relationships. We shall continue to open new accounts in various currencies based on our trade flows and business requirements.

The correspondents are listed on a country basis. The banks are listed alphabetically.

International Banking Division

List of Correspondent Banks