The decision to sell the five branches pre-dated HSBC’s recent merger with OIB, the publication quoted Ewan Stirling, chief executive of HSBC Bank Oman, as saying, although it went on to note that in India, there is a limit to how many branches foreign bank are allowed to control. This would limit its appeal to a bank intent on growing its business there.
Three of the branches up for sale are in Pakistan, with the remaining two in India.
"We are hoping to identify buyers by the end of the year, a challenging timeline, given the number of parties involved and the need for regulatory approval in both countries,” Stirling told the publication.
He added that the process to sell the five overseas branches of OIB had been decided before HSBC’s merger with OIB, in June.
HSBC Bank Oman, which has approximately 400,000 customers on the retail side and 10,000 on the commercial side, has a “strong” network of 88 branches spread across the Sultanate, the Times of Oman said.
With a land mass of approximately 309,500sq km, making it around the size of the US state of Kansas, Oman has a population of around 3.1million.
