State-owned, Oriental bank of commerce (OBC), is planning to setup hundred new branches across India to increase the count to 1500 with a total business of Rs. 200,000 crore by March 2010.

At the inauguration of a new branch office, OBC's Chairman and managing Director, T Y Prabhu said that the bank was planning to hire 1800 more personnel at all entry, mid and senior level to meet the demands of expansion. The bank currently has 16615 employees.

The bank plans to recruit 100 marketing managers and 83 Agriculture Officers during 2009-10, he said. He also said that the bank had aimed a growth of 21 percent by the next fiscal and was well on track of achieving it. After the instability in job market the job seekers are looking forward to the public sector.

The Chairman revealed that the bank had planned to concentrate more on four areas-agricultural credit, retail credit, development loans for SME sector and large corporate finance, that constituted thirty percent of the overall business.

Talking about financial inclusion, he said it had covered 2,118 villages consisting of 14.18 lakh households. As many 1,921 villages were 100 per cent financially inclusive, Mr Prabhu added that apart from rural poor, the bank was also planning to cover Urban poor.