As part of the review process it is planning a shift in focus of the activity of BoI Finance, the merchant banking outfit of the bank.

With merchant banking activity in stagnancy, the bank is considering taking up loan syndication, managing mergers and acquisitions among other things, a senior bank official said.

The bank is also planning to set up a separate housing finance subsidiary, executive director, S Gopalakrishnan told PTI.

BoI has obtained in-principle clearance from its board for the subsidiary which would be set up after working out the nitty-gritties.

The bank is also planning to set up a wholly-owned subsidiary in Trinidad and Tobago, open representative offices in Shanghai and Qatar and add a branch in Kenya.

The bank would also be taking stock of its subsidiaries to ascertain their operations in the scheme of things.

The bank's othersubsidiaries are BoI asset management company and a securities arm which was added recently. All of them are profitable entities with some of its mutual fund schemes outperforming the index.

As part of the `review' the bank would be reviewing the operations of its branches to assess their profitability, Gopalkrishnan said.

While there were no immediate plans to close down any branches, merger of loss making branches with the stronger ones is not ruled out, he said.

Rationalisation of the workforce was also on the cards, he said adding that BoI was considering the feasibility of coming out with floating rate deposits this year.

Earlier this year the bank was among the first to introduce tenor linked rates for lending to industry.

Gopalakrishnan said that initial indications had shown that their customers were accepting the concept of rates linked to the maturity period of the loans.

The bank also plans to enter the insurance sector as and when it opens up. ``We are talking to a couple of foreigninsurance companies'', he said.

For the moment, the bank plans to concentrate on the general insurance sector as ``everyone else wants to enter the life insurance sector'', he said, adding the bank would leverage its vast branch network.

Last year BoI's net profit fell by 45 per cent to Rs 201 crore due to a combination of increase in non-performing assets (NPAs), falling interest spreads and lower credit offtake.