Oriental Bank CEO asks FinMin to give a new name for newly merged entity

Oriental Bank of Commerce has requested the finance ministry to give a new name for the entity that will be created after it merges with Punjab National Bank (PNB) and Union Bank of India (UBI), a top official said on Tuesday.

"This is an amalgamation of equals," the bank's Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director Mukesh Kumar Jain told PTI in an interview here.

"We have requested Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman that the name of the new bank to be created after amalgamation is either different from the three banks or it should reflect the old identity of the three banks, so that a sense of equal participation appeared in the name," he added.

On August 30 last year, Sitharaman had announced the merger of OBC, PNB and UBI as part of a streamlining process where the government decreases the number of banks it runs to a dozen.

Mergers of two more sets of banks were also announced as part of the process. The only precedent for such a process is the three-way merger of Bank of Baroda, Vijaya Bank and Dena Bank, where the merged entity has been named Bank of Baroda, the largest among the three.

If the bank formed after amalgamation is not given a separate name, people would feel that OBC and UBI merged into PNB, Jain said.

Jain said the process of amalgamation might begin soon and hoped for the new name of the merged entity to be included in the notification merging the three banks.

He said OBC has 2,400 branches, 2,600 automated teller machines and 22,000 employees and added that the bank is already organising customer outreach, especially for the requirements of the small businesses and corporate segments, considering that there is a heavy demand for loans in the last quarter.

The pace of business growth at OBC is at 11 per cent currently, which is higher than the industry average of 6-7 per cent, he said.

Currently, the bank's overall business stands at Rs 4.02 trillion and it is targeting to take it up to Rs 4.25 trillion by March 31.