Postal Services of Portugal, commonly referred to as CTT, the initials of its Portuguese name, announced on Wednesday it would open a new bank by the end of this month.

The new lender, to be called Banco CTT, would set up 50 branches by March 2016, Chinese official news agency Xinhua reported.

The first branch, opening on November 27, would only serve corporate clients while additional branches opening later would offer services to individual customers, the report said.

Francisco de Lacerda, president of CTT, said the achievement marked a “very old ambition of CTT”. He also stressed the importance of creating a lender with “universal” appeal to all generations of Portuguese people.

CTT was founded in 1520. It was privatised in two stages starting in 2013 and concluding in 2014. The deals realised 909 million euros (US$974 million) in gross proceeds for the Portuguese government, it was reported in 2014.