Regulatory pressures and stiff competition have forced FirstRand to scale down its retail operations in India after the company failed to grow its footprint despite the country's large population. The decision, announced this week, came after FirstRand weighed the demand on its resources, particularly IT development resources. "We had to look at all our opportunities and weigh up how long it would take us to get to scale in India and compare that to the other opportunities we felt would yield results in the near term," said deputy CEO Alan Pullinger on Friday. The bank ventured into the Indian market in 2009 with corporate and investment banking services to gain access to the Indo-African trade. It expanded into retail banking in 2012. "That was off the back of a large population, a dynamic country with good growth prospects. We had a sense that there were opportunities for us to get into retail banking," said Pullinger. "The India operations contributed just 4% to the group's profi...
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