The Hindu Business Line : OBC not keen on acquisitions

EVEN as the Government is increasingly keen on consolidations in the banking arena aimed at evolving few global sized banking giants, Oriental Bank of Commerce (OBC) that had acquired the ailing Global Trust Bank (GTB) recently is not any more interested in growth through inorganic route.

The bank has evolved its own roadmap to emerge as a global sized major through consolidating its spread in the existing markets and aggressively expanding into the eastern region where it has limited presence, the Chairman and Managing Director of OBC, Mr B.D. Narang, told Business Line here.

Having achieved a balance sheet size of over Rs 56,000 crore last fiscal, the bank has now set its eyes on touching the Rs 1-lakh crore mark by March 2006. The bank has also chalked out a major technology programme for networking at least 500 branches by this fiscal-end and altogether 1,000-networked branches by March 2006.

Expecting the staff-related issues of erstwhile GTB to be successfully addressed in the next couple of months, the bank proposes to take up staff rationalisation programme across the country soon.

The bank plans to deploy the surplus staff to expand its branch network in the eastern part of the country. It plans to open 40-50 branches in the eastern region in the couple of years.

These include Orissa, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Bihar and West Bengal outside Kolkata.

"Mergers should be driven by synergies. We have already achieved this through acquisition of GTB where synergies came in the form of geographical reach, technology platform and new business," Mr Narang said.

Admitting that there was a delay of couple of months in the merger process of the erstwhile GTB with OBC, Mr Narang said the bank would come out with merged balance sheet by December-end.