Mumbai, May 7

Despite the uncertainty in the global financial markets, Indian banks had a good run in their international operations, in the last fiscal, thanks to the increased overseas M&A activities of Indian corporates.

Among the banks that have declared their annual results for 2007-08, Bank of India, State Bank of India, Indian Overseas Bank and ICICI Bank have reported an increase in revenue from their international operations.

This growth is despite the fact that some of them have exposure to credit derivative transactions and had to make provisions for the marked-to-market losses as well.

Bank of Baroda, another large bank with significant overseas operations, is yet to announce its results.

The country’s largest bank, State Bank of India, for instance, saw its profits from overseas operations almost double from $90 million in 2006-07 to about $180 million in 2007-08, said a senior official of the bank. International advances were up by 50.4 per cent, year-on-year.

SBI made a provision of $10 million (approximately Rs 40 crore) on its marked-to-market losses on account of exposure to sub-prime paper in its overseas operations, last fiscal.

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