The Oriental Bank of Commerce has tied up with Infosys and Wipro for centralised banking solutions to provide customers with "anywhere anytime" services, which is part of the information technology upgradation drive at an investment of Rs 280 crore (Rs 2.80 billion).

While Infosys will provide the total banking solutions, Wipro would supply the hardware and equipment to OBC.

"The centralised banking solutions will be implemented at 25 branches spread all over the country by March 2004, which would be followed by 200 more branches annually," a bank release said in New Delhi on Monday.

The bank has also tied up with another company, NCR, for the networking and installation of 200 ATMs.

"These initiatives are being adopted within the overall IT budget of Rs 280 crore to be spent in the next 4-5 years," the bank said.

With this, the bank plans to cover 500 branches under the centralised banking solution in the next two-and-a-half years, covering all branches in the metro, urban and semi-urban areas.

The introduction of centralised banking solution would enable OBC to launch a number of IT-based products and bring it on par with its competitors in the private sector, it said.

The bank has already computerised major branches, which covers 94 per cent of the total business.

While embarking on the IT drive, OBC has reduced its non-performing assets to 1.4 per cent, while shoring up its capital adequacy ratio to a healthy 14 per cent.