Best foreign bank in India

Barclays has been named the best foreign bank in India for its "stand out performance and growing revenues" by Business Today.

The study identified banks that, "in spite of the enormity of the macro-economic challenges, have managed to weather the storm by growing robustly." Barclays was selected over other foreign banks with a much larger and longer presence in India.

Jaideep Khanna, CEO, Barclays India said: “This is a first for us in India and is gratifying validation of the effort that the team here has put in. We continue to remain focused on delivering best-in-class services for our clients and in delivering on our strategy of providing unrivalled access for our clients in India to the deeper capital markets of Europe and the US and in helping our European and US clients in accessing the opportunities that India presents."

Barclays in India has made a dramatic turnaround. The India branches ended the 2012-13 financial year with a net loss of INR564mn. A full and complete exit from retail banking soon after coupled with a combined Corporate & Investment Banking coverage strategy helped the business make strong strides during the 2013-2016 period despite a stubbornly difficult macro-economic environment.

Not only have accumulated losses of nearly INR7bn been entirely erased, the profit and loss account today has moved to a strongly positive position with a balance of over INR2.3bn. Barclays in India arguably has the cleanest balance sheet in the banking industry with near-zero net non-performing assets and a cost-income ratio of 31.85%, also one of the lowest in the industry. 

"Barclays balance sheet is not in the league of the big four foreign banks – Citi, Standard Chartered, HSBC and Deutsche – but the bank surpasses competition in terms of CAGR on deposits, advances, fee income and operating profits. The bank is also on top in terms of capital adequacy ratio and asset quality," said the study.