Oriental Bank to open 5 new branches in state

In a bid to expand its business in Orissa, the public sector Oriental Bank of Commerce (OBC) plans to open five more branches in the state.

The new branches will come up at Jajpur Road, two rural locations in Jagatsinghpur and Bhadrak districts and two semi-urban locations in Keonjhar and Rayagada districts. At present, the bank has a network of 18 branches and one extension counter in the state.

All the existing branches have the core banking facilities and the new branches will also operate on the same platform. The bank has 14 ATMs across the state and plans to install another five ATMs in the current year. Interestingly, the bank has no ATM in major towns like Berhampur, Sambalpur and Balasore, even though it has branches located in these urban centres.

"Installation of ATMs in these towns will be delayed because of the change in some policy guidelines of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI)", said Purnendu Sarangi, the head of the regional office of the bank at Bhubaneswar.

He, however, said the bank has series of technology based products. A customer of the bank can operate his account in any of the bank's branch across the country on-line and avail of bouquet of technology based products and services like online tax payment, online payment of insurance premium and online booking of railway tickets.

The ATM-cum-Debit card of the bank is backed by superior security features, Sarangi claims. For the convenience of the students, the bank has introduced a facility for submitting education loan application online, he said. He said, the bank has entered into a joint venture with the public sector Canara Bank, HSBC, an international bank to form a Life Insurance Company with the aim to introduce world class life insurance products in the country.