Public sector, Oriental Bank of Commerce (OBC) decides to make its presence overseas and therefore plans to set up a representative office in UAE by the end of March 2009.

OBC's Executive Director, Mr S C Sinha said, "We would be opening the representative office in Dubai by March." This is the first office of the bank that will be set outside India after its establishment in Lahore in 1943.

Mr Sinha further informed that the bank has already received regulatory approval from both the countries for the setting up the office.

Presently the bank has a network of 1,464 branches spread across the nation. It has a business turnover of 1,60,000 crore and it target to increase this business to Rs 2 lakh crore by March 2010.

The bank was asked whether it required government aid to meet the regulatory credit requirement. To this Mr Sinha replied that his bank has already maintained a capital adequacy ratio of over 12% and therefore they do not need an additional capital for this year.

Recently OBC has raised Rs 500 crore from Tier II bonds in order to meet the credit growth. However there is still a head room of about Rs 4,600 crore and this would enable the bank to meet the requirement without taking funds from the government's recapitalization plan.

OBC is also likely to get a dose of capital infusion by the government so as to maintain their capital adequacy ratio (CAR) at above 12%.