RBS to shut 6 of 10 branches in India from October 1

Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) will close six branches out of 10 retail banking and wealth management services in India from October 1.  

The RBS branches in Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune, Gurgaon, Noida and Vadodara will be closed with effect from October 1, 2016, cited the bank in a notice to its customers.

"We will be withdrawing the existing retail banking and wealth management services across all the ten RBS branch locations," RBS said. 

The remaining four RBS branches namely Chennai, Kolkata, Mumbai and New Delhi will close in due course post intimation, it added. 

The British lender, which has been in India since 1921, also asked the customers to close their account(s) and make alternate arrangements for banking, wealth management and demat account(s) on or before August 31.

In May, RBS had announced to initiate a phased exit from retail banking and close down branches in India, PTI reported on July 19. 

The decision to wind up retail banking was in the making ever since the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) refused to clear the sale of its branches (then 16) to HSBC India a few years back, the news report had said. 

One of the main reasons for the regulatory refusal was HSBC's decision against converting its branch banking route into a fully-owned subsidiary route as it already has nearly 50 branches, it added.