Yes Bank has been granted approval from the Reserve Bank of India to open representative offices in London and Singapore.

The Indian bank will inaugurate the offices within the next 12 months, and is currently seeking the relevant licenses from the financial authorities in both jurisdictions.

Yes Bank chairman, Rana Kapoor, tells GTR that the bank has yet to appoint staff to operate the offices, and that they will offer the usual auxiliary services to support their clients in these regions. These include account opening, deposits and money transfer.

Referral service will be available for Indian companies in these branches seeking trade finance facilities, with the representative offices accepting enquiries on behalf of the main service centres.

There are more than 6,000 Indian companies in Singapore, using it as a launch pad for doing business in Southeast Asia. Meanwhile, there is US$15bn in bilateral trade between the UK and India.

These will be Yes Bank’s third overseas branches, following the opening of an office in Abu Dhabi in 2015.