State-owned Bank of India on Wednesday said it has closed down its operations of representative office in Yangoon (Myanmar) from mid-January.
“The Ministry of Planning and Finance, Directorate of Investment and Company Administration, Myanmar has allowed to terminate/close our Yangoon Representative Office (Myanmar) with effect from January 19, 2018,” the bank said in a regulatory filing.
Public sector banks (PSBs), as per the agenda approved in the Manthan programme in November last year, were asked to examine all their 216 overseas operations as part of clean and responsible banking initiative.
As many as 35 overseas branches of state-owned banks are said to have closed down since. The closing down of overseas operations assumes significance in the present context in the backdrop of jeweller Nirav Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi of Gitanjali Gems misused the foreign office facility in the nearly Rs 13,000 crore fraud at PNB by presenting fake Letters of Undertakings (LOUs) to overseas banks.