India's banking major ICICI Bank has opened a representative office here in a bid to establish a foothold on the African continent.

Sudhir Dole, general manager and head of international financial institutions group at ICICI, said the decision to make a foray into South Africa had been prompted by several reasons.

"India-South Africa trade is growing at a phenomenal rate. There is keen interest by the two governments to interact with each other and there is a huge population of Indian origin out here," Dole told.

"We're coming to South Africa not only for South Africa. It's going to be the headquarters and we are going to look at Africa based out of South Africa," said Dole, who was here to promote the representative office to prospective clients in Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg.

ICICI's advent into South Africa was an expression of the confidence that the Indian bank had in the country, Dole noted.

"Both the Indian and South African economies are doing well. Both are strong emerging market countries. So that's obviously one of the reasons why we have looked at South Africa.

"It's the best performing country in the whole of Africa and we are going to use it as a hub to explore the rest of the continent," he said.

Dole said ICICI could not engage in retail banking in South Africa because there was no regulatory approval for this.

"We have a representative office here so we can't do all the things that we do in India. We may look at that at some point, but today we need to come here and understand the market better.

"The immediate focus is going to be trade finance and if there are any requirements of the Indian community here, subject to certain regulatory approvals which there may be here."

Dole said many Indian multinationals established in South Africa wanted to know how ICICI could assist them.

"We are looking at whether we could assist Indian companies coming into South Africa, or Indian companies or South African companies going into India - that's going to be our main business," he remarked.

Local businessmen were optimistic about the assistance that ICICI could provide.

"I think the timing of ICICI's entry into South Africa was perfect, given that (British bank) Barclays has just re-entered the country, taking over the local giant ABSA Bank," said Sundru Pillay, a public relations consultant.

"There is great excitement in the business sector about this."

Mickey Chetty, president of the South African Tamil Federation, said the growing relations between India and South Africa augured well for the South African business community.

The office opened by ICICI Bank would go a long way in making transactions between organised businesses in both countries easier, he said.

Dole emphasised that ICICI was not planning to compete with local banks in the highly competitive local banking sector.

"We're going to work with them. We're going to have partnerships and alliances, because we don't have a presence here and no South African bank has a presence in India, so they need a partner there as much as we need them. It's a very symbiotic relationship.

"We will see if we can reach an understanding with the four major banking groups here. We will see who is keen on working with us."