The users of the equitymaster.com site will be able to open a bank and depository account with UTI Bank and buy and sell shares through the Net. According to UTI Bank chairman and managing director PJ Nayak, the strategic initiative with the site will enable customers of UTI Bank to take full advantage of the opportunities thrown up by new technologies such as the Internet. UTI Bank vice-president Hemant Kaul said that the pact was non-exclusive between the bank and website. The bank will be tying up with other e-broking and e-commerce sites in the next few weeks. ``The bank will also be opening up a centralised call centre within the next few weeks. It will also be connecting all its branches by a telecom leased line.

The bank will be transferring its database by July and this will enable the bank to leverage its database for e-commerce initiatives and for other initiatives like data-warehousing and data-mining- where information of the customer spending habits will be used to sell other co-related products like credit cards, loans, etc,'' Nayak said.