Seventy new branches were opened during the review period, bringing the Bank's branch network to a total of 536 branches as at March 31, 2009. Despite the global downturn and its likely adverse impact on demand in the domestic economy, the branch will remain the focus of the Bank's strategy execution.

Consequently, every branch of the Bank will serve as a critical interface between a retail banking strategy designed to deliver financial service solutions to new customers amongst the country's nascent middle class and the e-banking platforms that will serve as market-open vehicles.

In the short to medium-term, our branch opening strategy will be driven by competition for market share. In this regard, a key requirement will be the ease with which players in the industry combine the need-satisfying attributes of their product/service mix with the ease of access/use and convenience of their delivery channel mix.