| KB Kookmin Bank CEO Hur Yin, third from left, claps his hands with other officials at the opening ceremony of the bank's Gurugram branch in India, Feb. 18. Yonhap |
By Park Hyong-ki
KB Kookmin Bank has opened its first India branch in Gurugram, the bank said Tuesday.
The Indian branch will work with its strategic partner, the Bank of Baroda, to offer various financial services to Korean companies already operating in and seeking to enter the region.
The Bank of Baroda is India's state-run bank headquartered in Vadodara, Gujarat.
The lender's India opening is in line with Korea's efforts to expand ties with Southeast and South Asia to diversify its trading partners.
"KB Kookmin Bank's Gurugram branch will seek to meet the financial needs of our corporate customers in India," CEO Hur Yin said at the opening ceremony, Feb. 18.
"Furthermore, we will continue to expand into the Middle East, North Africa and Europe by establishing our Western Asia base."
The Gurugram branch will not only provide export financing, and deposit and loan services, but also foreign exchange derivatives and other capital market instruments.
KB Kookmin Bank said it has been preparing to open the Indian branch since it opened its Mumbai office in June 2012.
It relocated the Mumbai office to Gurugram in April 2016, and turned the office into the branch.
Hur has been traveling abroad in Southeast and South Asia since Feb. 14, and recently met with executives of Bank Bukopin in Indonesia to discuss a future partnership.
The Korean bank acquired a 22 percent stake in Bank Bukopin in July 2018, becoming the Indonesian bank's second-biggest shareholder.
Hur's next stop after opening the Gurugram branch will be Vietnam, Feb. 20.
There, he will be attending the opening ceremony of KB Kookmin Bank's Hanoi branch, according to the bank.
KB will be the sixth Korean bank to open a Hanoi branch, following Shinhan, Woori, Industrial Bank of Korea, NongHyup and KEB Hana.
Shinhan is Vietnam's biggest foreign-invested bank, following its acquisition of ANZ's retail banking unit in 2017.