Foreign banking major Standard Chartered Bank has tied up with Oriental Bank of Commerce for providing agency trade services to Indian importers.
Under the arrangement, 12 authorised OBC branches will issue Import Letters of Credit to traders for East Asian countries against which Standard Chartered Bank will re-issue local Letters of Credit.
"This arrangement will be beneficial for OBC as we will get more commission from such transactions," OBC chairman K N Prithviraj said in New Delhi after signing the 'Agency Trade Services Agreement' with SCB general manager for South Asia Jaspal Bindra.
OBC and SCB will partner in negotiation and other trade-related services for these Letters of Credit.
"The tie-up with OBC is the ninth of such kind of arrangements as we focus on serving more Indian customers," Bindra said.
The London-based bank had earlier tied up with Bank of India, Punjab National Bank, Central Bank of India and Corporation Bank among others.
The two banks aim at improving services to the Indian importers and mutually grow trade business through the agency trade services.
OBC, which has successfully merged the ailing Global Trust Bank with itself, is one of the best managed PSU banks with a branch network of 1,150 and ATM network of 488.
Heading overseas, OBC will be the 30 per cent equity partner in the Malaysian banking joint venture with Bank of Baroda (40 per cent) and Bank of Maharashtra (30 per cent) holding the rest.
Standard Chartered has 80 branches in 30 cities in India.
