Mumbai, March 4: Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ) is returning to India after a gap of 10 years.

ANZ said today it had received an in-principle approval from the Reserve Bank of India for a foreign banking licence.

ANZ once owned the redoubtable Grindlays Bank, which it sold to Standard Chartered Bank in 2000.

ANZ said it planned to open its first branch in Mumbai in the next 12 months.

“This is an important step for ANZ as part of a long-term commitment to progressively rebuild our presence in India,” Alex Thursby, ANZ’s chief executive for Asia Pacific, Europe and America, said.

He added that economic relations between India and Australia had been growing and that India was now Australia’s fourth largest export market.

ANZ’s return to India is part of its wider strategy to become a “super regional bank”.

As part of this plan, ANZ has been looking to grow, particularly in the Asia Pacific region. ANZ has been operating in China since 1986. It also has stakes in a couple of banks.

Its entry comes just days after finance minister Pranab Mukherjee announced in his budget speech that the RBI was planning to grant a few banking licences to non-banking finance companies and other corporate entities.

While the state-owned and private sector banks have been targeting the corporate and retail customers, foreign banks such as Standard Chartered, Citi and HSBC have ramped up their activities as the economy picks up further momentum.