MUMBAI: Emirates NBD’s Rs 26,015 crore purchase of a 60% stake in RBL Bank marks more than the largest banking cross-border deal; it signals how the India-UAE economic relationship is shifting from trade and remittances towards capital and control. The Dubai-based lender now counts India among its five core strategic markets, alongside the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey.Hesham Abdulla Al Qassim, the bank’s vice-chairman and managing director, casts the move as a historical return. When the precursor to Emirates NBD was established in 1963, he noted, it relied heavily on Indian financial linkages. “We started the financial institution in 1963 with the help of State Bank… In the 1960s everyone in the region was desperately using Indian rupees. India in the Middle East was a very important country,” he said. Indian enterprise, he added, helped build the Gulf’s commercial foundations: “Indian businessmen… have started the whole platform of the economy in every GCC country including the UAE.” The acquisition, in his telling, fulfils a long-held ambition “to come back to India to continue our trade and relationship”, now backed by sufficient capital to buy a bank outright.The transaction makes Emirates NBD the promoter of RBL Bank and equips it with a domestic platform in one of the world’s fastest-growing banking markets. For Shayne Nelson, the group’s chief executive officer, the logic is straightforward. “As a group, Emirates NBD has identified five core strategic markers that will drive our future growth…the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey and of course India,” he said, describing India as a uniquely important growth market.Banking on diasporaThe bet rests not only on macroeconomics but also on demography and diaspora. “There are 4.3 million Indians who call UAE home. They have contributed enormously to our economy, society and our success,” Nelson said, noting that roughly a third of the bank’s UAE customer base is of Indian origin. Economic ties, he added, are deepening rapidly: “Bilateral trade has already passed $100 billion, making India UAE’s third largest trading partner and India the UAE’s second largest trading partner.”
