In 1946 when a new era of freedom and prosperity was dawning in India, pioneers of Bank of India took a big leap in International financial arena by opening first ever Indian Bank branch beyond Indian Territories. Thus London branch came into existence on 1946 to take care of ever growing business needs of well settled ethnic community. With the inflow of immigrants from Uganda, Kenya and other African countries, the prospect of good business growth in UK increased manifold and the branch network was increased to 12 over a period of time. The need to expand our presence in Europe resulted in opening a branch in Paris 1974. the bank also opened a branch in Jersey (Channel Islands), an offshore financial center in 1978 to take the advantage of its stale financial system, efficient communication, transport links and low taxation.

Since mid eighties to early nineties, the key focus area of the Bank's operations in UK was consolidation and restructuring. Unviable and less profitable branches were thus closed or merged to transform the UK operations into a well knit cohesive unit reducing the number of branches to 6.

The opening up if Indian economy provided good business opportunities to the Bank. India related business has a lot of commercial importance and bank of India established "India Desk" in the June 1997 to serve exclusively Non Resident Indians and India related business.