Oriental Bank sets business target Rs10,000,00 Cr by this fiscal

Kolkata, Dec 8 (UNI) Oriental Bank of Commerce (OBC) has set a strategic target to enhance business of Rs. 1,00,000 crore by this fiscal with emphasis on more business network in Eastern and Northestern parts of the country, according OBC chairman cum managing director K N Prithiviraj rpt Prithiviraj.

After inaugurating OBC's 7th storied new regional office at Salt Lake here, Prithiviraj told a news conference that after overcoming initial hurdles following takeover of Global Trust Bank in 2004, the OBC has entered into a strategic alliance called ''OIC'' with Indian Bank and Corporation Bank to explore new areas for business partnership.

He said the company was growing steadily as it was now having a business of 98,000 crore- both deposits and advances- and set to make it one lakh crore by this fiscal by opening more branches, particularly in Eastern India and Northeast. He, however, ruled out any takeover or merger of the financial institution. To have effective control over these region, the bank has got three regional offices - Kolkata, Durgapur and Bhubaneswar- they were keeping close contact with the government and semi-government departments with a veiw to take active part in vaiorus development programme being made by them.

OBC has now 1319 outlets (1217 branches and 102 extension counters) spread over across the country. The bank has taken major IT initiatives taking many branches on CBS,( About 80% of total branches) and deployment of about 569 ATMs with launching of newer schemes, products and services like Any Where Banking, internet banking, cash management system and others.

Mr Prithiviraj said the bank made huge profit by investing IT that got business up to 19028 crore ( by 24 %) to 98431 crore as on September 2006 from Rs 79403 crore as on septmber 2005.

The CMD said the strategic alliance ''OIC'', objectives were utilising available infrastructure such as ATMs, training eastablishmen for workforce, sharing IT resources, building e-payment system in the retail, corporate and forex areas, sharing franchise and marketing reseach among the three nationalised banks.

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