mumbai it is not just indian businessmen who are keen on a slice of the indian banking pie jay sidhu an indianamerican banker who is chairman and ceo of customers banka statechartered 35 billion asset lender with headquarters in pennsylvaniais on his third visit to india to find a strategic banking partner in which it aims to pick up a minority stake we are looking at a potential collaboration opportunity that will benefit both indian customers and those in the us to do business across borders most of the big banks that do business with india cater to high networth individuals and multinational companies our focus is on the small and midsized businesses and the middle class said sidhu he said that the customers bank could help indian investors with purchase of property in business or in trade with small businesses in the united states and partnership with a local bank would enable customers bank to collaborate with indian partners before taking over at customers bank sidhu was ceo of sovereign bancorp which he grew from less than a billion dollar bank into a lender with 90 billion of assets sovereign entered into a partnership with sovereign bancorp which later acquired sovereign bank with sidhu getting a seat on the sanatander group board in 2006 after leaving sovereign bank in 2006 sidhu returned to banking from retirement by taking charge at customers bancorp in 2009 which he grew to a 35 billion organization in three years according to sidhu there is a huge growth potential in tapping regional markets i have seen how sanatander has grown from a small bank to giant by focusing on spanish speaking countries at present when banks talk about doing business with the indian diaspora the only service they talk about is remittances a big chunk of the emigration to the us took place in the 80s and this population is retiring and their needs are also changing there are also children of many indian families studying in the united states said sidhu he adds that there are interests from both sides in buying overseas homes even with the remittance limit of 200000 indians can look at buying million dollar homes in florida he said an hdfc bank or an icici bank may be too big to take us seriously we are looking at a company with which we can have a deeper engagement and if this requires an investment on our part we are prepared to make a small investment within the 5 limit permitted by rbi said sidhu although a small bank customers bank is capital rich having raised close to 100 million recently in a stock offering earlier this year although customers bank is largely a business bank and does not have much of nonresident indians as customers sidhu feels that partnership with an indian lender will give it an edge according to sidhu although talks are on with banks for a partnership he is open to a nonbanking finance company which