British bank Lloyds TSB Group Plc is targeting Britain's 1.2 million Indians to offer free money transfers between the UK and India in a partnership with ICICI Bank Ltd, Lloyds TSB said on Monday. The UK bank's customers will also be able to use the service to buy a rupee mortgage and it will give them access to the 560 branches of India's second-biggest lender, Lloyds TSB said in a statement. To use the service, a UK customer must have a Lloyds TSB current account.
The service will be available in all 2,200 branches of Britain's biggest personal current account provider by the end of April, Lloyds TSB said. Once the UK account is open, an account will be set up by ICICI in India.
"The (Indian) community's links with India remain strong and many British Indians have businesses, properties and families back home which they continue to finance," Gordon Rankin, director of Lloyds TSB Community Financial Services, said in the statement.
Lloyds TSB said the service was part of a push to win more business from Britain's ethnic minorities. This year it launched current accounts and mortgages that comply with Islamic principles.
It said the community of people living and working in Britain, who had origins in India going back five generations or less, numbered 1.2 million.
The UK's fifth-biggest lender has reorganised its core retail bank, giving more power to local management, to try to boost revenue growth.