The bank's homepage shows new name after an exodus of NRI customers.

KOCHI: Thrissur-based Catholic Syrian Bank has been renamed as CSB Bank Ltd after it witnessed an exodus of NRI customers owing to troubles in flow of remittances to India over the word ‘Syrian’ in its name as many foreign banks have put Syria as a ‘banned’ country on their list.

C V R Rajendran, managing director and CEO, said the bank had moved RBI for the change in name in 2015. “Most of our deposits are from NRI sources. Many customers were not getting the amount in NRI remittance transactions as such remittances were automatically filtered out by foreign banks on seeing the name ‘Syrian’,” he said, adding that some exporters and importers also suffered when the bank’s letters of credit were not accepted.

“We have dropped the word ‘Syrian’ from our name (effective June10). And we thought better to retain the old brand by using the name CSB, because we were known as CSB all along. The word ‘Catholic’ may also communicate that the bank is a community-based bank, which we are not now. It is a broad-based bank catering to every community and every geography, and there is no Syrian connection for us,” Rajendra said. He added there were ‘quite a few instances’ of the bank’s ‘Syrian connection’ affecting customers. “Many customers shifted to other banks owing to this. ”

CSB, once bigger than other Kerala-headquartered banks like Federal Bank, South Indian Bank and Dhanlaxmi Bank, is preparing for an IPO in September. India-born Canadian billionaire Prem Watsa had acquired majority shareholding in CSB last year at a cost of nearly Rs 1,200 crore, through Fairfax India, part of Watsa’s Fairfax Financial Holdings.

