Opening an account in Bank of Ceylon Experience

Writing I had an interesting experience trying to open a bank account at Bank of Ceylon and wanted to see if others in Sri Lanka have faced the same thing. I recently visited a BOC branch in Colombo to open a personal savings account. I brought my NIC and was ready with the required documents. Instead of processing the request, the staff told me I should open the account at a branch near my residence, even though I work in Colombo and it would be much more convenient for me to bank there. What surprised me was that they didn’t mention any regulation or formal requirement — it sounded more like a branch practice. From what I understand, there’s no rule that says you must open an account only near your home address. It feels a bit outdated, especially when most banks allow you to open and operate accounts island-wide. For people who live in one district and work in another, this kind of restriction just makes things unnecessarily difficult. Has anyone else experienced this with BOC? Were you able to open an account in a different branch from where you live? Just curious whether this is normal practice or depends on the branch.