BoB on Wednesday appointed international consultants Deloitte Touche & Tohmatsu to help restructure its international operations. The consultants, among the top five international accounting firms, will submit their first report within 15 weeks. Based on this report, BoB will decide on the form its international operations will take.

One of the options being considered is to incorporate its international operations as separate companies. This would require major infusion of capital and resources, depending on the capital adequacy requirements in different countries. At present, all its international branches together have assets worth $250 million, constituting nearly9 per cent of its total assets.

The international consultants will work in coordination with the Bank of Baroda's own team of officers. The restructuring team consists of a core team and three regional teams based in India, the US and Europe. The report will be submitted to the bank and in the next two weeks' time, the bank will decide on the course of action to be taken on the report. The implementation plan will be charted out after that. Apart from placing the international operations of the bank in the context of international banking, the brief of the consultants include the products, markets and human resources management and growth opportunities in different lines of businesses and countries.

Kannan said the motive behind the entire move is to bring in additional profit to the bank. Nearly 20 per cent of BoB's profits in 1997-98 came from its international operations. After State Bank of India, Bank of Baroda has the largest number of foreign branches with 39 branches in 10 countries.At present,however, the bank's international business is confined to the expatriate Indian community. Kannan said he wants to change that and make BoB's international operations like that of any other foreign banks setting up business in foreign countries.

"We have the full blessing and backing of the Reserve Bank of India in our effort," Kannan said, ruling out any regulatory hurdles in creating an international bank. Besides, he said, Narasimhan committee on banking sector reforms has also suggested that a few of the Indian banks should become international players. Large international resource base is expected to help BoB play a crucial role at the advent of capital account convertibility.