Bank of India said it has closed its representative office in Yangon in Myanmar. The closure has taken place in mid-January, the bank said. It added the ministry of planning and finance’s directorate of investment and company administration, Myanmar has allowed the termination of the representative office. The Indian government had asked public sector banks to examine all their 216 overseas operations as part of clean and responsible banking initiative and some 35 overseas branches of state-owned banks are said to have closed since. Apart from Yangon, Bank of India is reported to have closed its office in Botswana while Bank of Baroda and Indian Overseas Bank have shut their Hong Kong branches. The public sector branches had some 165 overseas branches, besides subsidiaries, joint ventures and representative offices. State Bank of India had the largest number of overseas branches (52) followed by Bank of Baroda (50) and Bank of India (29).
