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Bank of Baroda: As the Indian bank turns 112 in India and 45 in the UAE, Gulf News takes a trip down the memory lane of the bank
See more at https://gulfnews.com/videos
Bank of Baroda: As the Indian bank turns 112 in India and 45 in the UAE, Gulf News takes a trip down the memory lane of the bank
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00:00The Bank of Baroda was established in 1908 and we started in Princely State at Baroda
00:10by Sajji Rao Gaikwad III and then it expanded its wings to other parts of India and then
00:19we started our first international operation in Kenya and Mombasa.
00:25From there, wherever Gujaratis migrated, the bank has started its operations in the highest
00:35number of countries, 25 countries with 110 branches.
00:40Then subsequently the bank has shut down some of the non-viable operations in five countries,
00:48one where single, single, one, one branch was there and it was not viable.
00:52So like Bahrain, Bahrain we failed to shut down, like that similarly some more branches
00:59we have shut down and the bank is in the process of shutting down some more operations.
01:05But all viable and which are doing well, bank is continuing its operations, bank is committed
01:13to continue.
01:14As I told you, wherever Gujaratis migrated to different parts of the world, bank also
01:21travelled.
01:22In the same way, bank has felt the Gujarati community has reached Dubai.
01:31So bank has started its first branch in 1974 in Dubai, the balance of this only one street
01:39used to be there, what I could gather, it started in a small setup.
01:46Then bank has travelled to Abu Dhabi in 1975, then subsequently in 1977 to Sharjah, these
01:56three were the prominent places for Bank of Gurdwara for quite a long time.
02:00Then we started our branch in Dera and subsequently we went to Rasal Khema and last one was L.N.
02:09branch.
02:10People like Bharatbhai Shah, who is no more now, he is to be very vocal for NRI community,
02:18he passed away recently, people like him bought this bank in fact to UEE at that time.
02:28But bank has never felt it belongs to a particular community or a particular religion or a particular
02:37caste or creed.
02:38We are here to serve the residents of UEE, more particularly whether it is a Imrati or
02:44a non-Imrati, we serve across, we don't have a differentiation.
02:49Even we love to hear Imratis, old timer Imratis, when I have an interaction, they ask me, why
02:58are you telling Bank of Baroda, it is a Baroda bank.
03:01When I have to go to school, I have to see the Baroda bank, I have to go from the front
03:07of this Baroda bank, you don't tell Bank of Baroda, we don't like that.
03:11So that is the kind of the bank has, its reputation here and at that time one thing is very imminent
03:24here pertinent to note, the Bank of Baroda reached UEE before Central Bank of UEE was
03:32set up.
03:33And first honorary CEO of Central Bank is from Bank of Baroda's CEO, Meenakshi Sundaram.
03:40He was the person behind the setting up Central Bank of UEE also.
03:44He was the honorary member or whatever that designation, he was given that position to
03:49set up Central Bank of UEE under the guidance of government of UEE.
03:56After I got started banking, going to bank and interacting with the banks, from that
04:03time if you see present banking, it totally changed.
04:08At that time you have to go to branch, even if you want anything, it used to be highly
04:14difficult either in India or in UEE, it used to be quite challenging, things were not so
04:22easy.
04:23We used to spend considerable time to even to withdraw money or to deposit or to get
04:32their passbook updated and various, if you have to remit money, they have to take a DD
04:39to get the DD, again they have to go, they will send it, it will go to clearing.
04:43It used to take a considerable time, it used to be a nightmare for people.
04:49But today with the click of mouse, even yesterday I was sharing to my customers, you have two
04:55apps, one is the India NRI app, one is the app of UEE Bank of Baroda, from your mobile
05:03just give a click and within no time you will see the credit in your mobile, you got the
05:10credit in India.
05:12So that is the technology that it has reached, within even the confirmation of debit may
05:20not come but the confirmation of credit is reaching your mobile, in mobile wallet.
05:24So that is the power of technology today.
05:27I would like to share one thing, Bank of Baroda is in comparison to other banks in UEE, we
05:36may be lagging somewhere in technology front.
05:40But we are committed in serving the customer with one-to-one and personal touch we serve,
05:50that is one of the very important element in our service.
05:56In UEE we have 1,35,000 customers, we used to be more banking on the trade finance and
06:06corporate banking but nowadays in the last two years we felt why we should not focus
06:16on the retail front.
06:17So that is one of the very, very giving a personal touch and important lines of business
06:23that it gives a connectivity to individual and when we started at that time our portfolio
06:30was very, very dismal but now in the last one and half year we have tripled our portfolio
06:38and we are doing a quite encouraging business in the retail segment.