Mumbai, Dec. 16 -- Foreign banks might have "lost the plot" about two decades ago to make it big in India, losing ground to local private banks, but HSBC India's chief executive, Hitendra Dave, now wants to use a recent approval to open new branches to regain some of that ground.

In January, the bank got a Reserve Bank of India (RBI) go-ahead to open 20 branches across cities such as Lucknow, Amritsar, Bhopal, Bhubaneswar, and Dehradun among others. When completed, the expansion will take its total branch count to 46. The first of the new lot was opened in Vadodara earlier in December. Unlike other banks, Indian branches of foreign banks need regulatory approval to open branches.

"Twenty years back, foreign banks just lost the plot. We ...