ICICI Bank, UK's Santander Sign MoU To Ease Corporate Banking At Both Ends

One of India's leading private sector banks, ICICI Bank, on Tuesday announced a tie-up with Santander bank in Britain in a pact aimed at facilitating the banking requirements of corporates operating across both countries.

The memorandum of understanding (MoU) between ICICI and Santander UK Plc, signed in Mumbai, is designed to establish a framework of partnership between the banks to meet the financial service requirements of corporate customers operating within the India-UK corridor.

ICICI Bank said it will provide banking solutions across trade, cross-border payments, supply chain, treasury solutions and retail banking to the UK corporates operating in India and Santander UK will support Indian corporates and new age businesses for their banking requirements in the UK.

Historically, India and UK have strong bilateral relations and India has been a preferred foreign investment destination for UK businesses. UK ranks amongst the top 10 countries investing in India, said Sriram H Iyer, Head of the International Banking Group who signed the MoU on behalf of ICICI Bank.

This MoU helps to provide seamless banking services for corporates in the UK-India corridor. With our wide network, industry-first digital offerings, and comprehensive suite of corporate ecosystem banking, we are confident that ICICI Bank will support Santander UK and help its customers grow their business in India, and make India one of their key markets, he said.

The partnership is aimed at serving the banking needs of the corporate ecosystem in the growing UK-India corridor, the banking executive noted.

According to official government statistics, the UK is the sixth-largest investor in India's economy, with cumulative foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows of USD 31.7 billion and contributing 6 per cent to India's total FDI inflows. John Carroll, Head of International and Transactional Banking at Santander UK, said its pact with ICICI will help the bank support even more UK companies to realise their international ambitions in India.

ICICI Bank stands out as a pioneer in the Indian banking industry, bringing industry-first digital solutions as well as local expertise, client focused solutions and a tailored sectoral approach, said Carroll.

This is twinned with a shared belief in the power of our international ecosystems, which will support ambitious UK SMEs looking to succeed in India. Next month, we'll be launching our digital platform to help UK companies navigate their way through the unknown and sometimes daunting path to international expansion, he said.

We have already established a significant number of agreements with banks and other key trade facilitation experts worldwide but with India increasing in importance as a destination for UK businesses to explore, adding ICICI Bank and India to our ecosystem means we're now able to support even more UK companies to realise their international ambitions, he added.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

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