Hilton celebrates 21

Hilton Colombo will celebrate its 21st year in Sri Lanka on January 21. To commemorate this event Hilton will release 2,100 balloons. Participants will have the chance of catching one of the several balloons which will have a Hilton Colombo voucher attached.

L. B. Finance at Matara

The 14th Branch of LB Finance will be opened at Station Road, Matara today at 10.30 a.m. Managing Director of the company Sumith Adhihetty will be the chief guest.

Punjabi bank to open in Lanka

Punjab National Bank plans to spend about Rs 8,000 crore on technology in five years. Also, by the next fiscal year, the bank plans to convert all its 4,500 branches into CBS (Core Banking Solutions) and open 100 new branches.

It will inaugurate its subsidiary in Hong Kong on January 30 CMD, Punjab National Bank, K.C. Chakraborty, told Business Standard. He added, “PNB will expand overseas to gain international exposure and expertise.

We will inaugurate our subsidiary in Hong Kong on January 30 and have plans to open subsidiary in Canada and repo office in Shanghai. We also plan to improve our office in Dubai and open offices in Sri Lanka and other SAARC countries.

“There are about 12,000 villages in Punjab, of which only 1,200 villages have bank branches. This is a mere 10 per cent.

“The figure suggests there is still a huge population to be served. Similarly if we consider the pan-India figure, only 30,000 villages of the 6,00,000 have bank branches. So we are planning to introduce 50,000 touch points across the country, making door-step banking common.

This is likely to attract an investment of Rs 500 crore.” Already, the bank has launched such projects at Neemarana in Rajasthan, Patna in Bihar and Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh.

Business Standard, India