Bank of India will soon launch online trading facility for the customers, enabling them to make investments in the equity market.
"We have tied up with a Mumbai-based broker Asit C Mehta and Company for offering online trading platform to our customers whereby they could trade in equity shares through our branches," P L Gairola, BoI executive director said.
Besides its conventional business, BoI offers life insurance, non-life insurance and mutual fund products in arrangement with National Insurance Company, ICICI Prudential, UTI etc, he said.
In a bid to use technology for business development, BoI has also decided to invest Rs 500-550 crore (Rs 5 to 5.5 billion) over a period of 10 years for the purpose of introducing centralised banking solutions in its branches.
BoI targets to implement CBS in 750 branches by June 2006, which will handle 80-85 per cent of its banking business. We have tied up with Hewlett Packard and Infosys to provide hardware and software for networking our branches, Gairola said.
BoI has also decided to set up strategic business units whereby a separate desk will be establised for each sector including corporate, SME and agriculture, he said.
Terming consolidation as a boon to the banking industry, he said, we are considering domestic as well as overseas acquisitions, but have not got any offer so far.
BoI has also decided to open offices in Tanzania and Belgium and upgrade its representative office in China to a full fledged branch.