OBC to empower all GTB branches to lend

The Oriental Bank of Commerce (OBC) has initiated the process of making all the branches of the erstwhile Global Trust Bank (GTB) into lending ones. Of the 100-odd branches that GTB had, only 11 focussed on lending while the remaining concentrated on deposits.

Speaking on the sidelines of the announcement regarding OBC's public issue, B D Narang, chairman and managing director of OBC, said, "We are empowering all GTB branches to enable them to provide loans as well. Initially, they will focus on retail lending and will later on move towards providing educational and housing loans."

The operational loss contribution of GTB, which was 69 per cent, has come down to 11 per cent this quarter, Narang said, adding, "By next quarter, we believe that it will start registering operational profit. We are optimistic that GTB will start contributing to the bottomline of OBC by 2006."

In the meanwhile, OBC will be also sorting out all the major issues pertaining to the erstwhile Global Trust Bank (GTB) by June 30 this year.

On the issues relating to GTB employees, Narang said, "Some of the employees of GTB were paid and designated differently in spite of being in the same grade. To settle this, we entrusted the work of gradation to the National Institute of Bank Management (NIBM). The institute has graded them now into four or five categories and by 2006 all issues pertaining to staff will be sorted out," Narang said.

The bank is also opening one regional office for every 30 branches of Global Trust Bank to ensure supervision.

"We have already opened regional offices in Bhubaneswar and Pune and will be opening three more in Bangalore, Durgapur and Mumbai," he added.

The total deposits and advances of OBC, inclusive of GTB, was Rs 76,000 crore for the year 2004-05. OBC is targeting to touch Rs 1,00,000 crore by March 2006.

"We need capital to reach this target and to meet the Basel-II requirements. That's why we are going public," Narang said.

OBC is coming out with a public issue of 58,000,000 equity shares of Rs 10 each through the book-building process.

There is also a reservation of shares up to 10 per cent each for employees and existing shareholders of the bank.