While many foreign banks are scaling back their operations, Singapore’s DBS Bank has added more than a million customers through its digital banking, even as it still awaits approval from the Central Bank of India to open a sole subsidiary in India, writes The Economic Times

The so-called ‘digibank’, which was launched in April last year, allows customers to first transfer money into an e-wallet and then open a full-fledged savings account using Aadhaar card-based fingerprint authentication.

“We now have 1.2 million customers. Our deposits have grown well. Demonetization was more beneficial for everyone, including us,” said Surojit Shom, CEO, DBS India.
The bank also said it will sell life insurance policies from three companies under an IRDA-sanctioned model that will allow customers to choose policies from Tata AIA Life and Birla Sun Life in addition to Aviva India.

As it moves towards establishing the subsidiary, DBS is awaiting a response to its 2015 application, which includes a plan to open 50-75 branches over the next three to five years. The bank currently has 12 branches in India.

“The Central Bank of India sent an application to the ministry just before demonetization in November, so we are awaiting a response from the ministry. We have so few branches, so creating them will be an important step for us. If we receive a satisfactory response, we will open more branches, because in this way we can be even more visible,” added Surojit Shom.