Westpac is advancing the relaunch of the Bank of Melbourne brand by several weeks and the brand will be actively back in use by the end of this month.The bank disclosed via Twitter yesterday that Bank of Melbourne "will open its doors on 25 July". A bank spokesperson later confirmed that it had sent letters to current customers of St George in Victoria with the same message.In March, Westpac announced the bank planned to revive the BOM brand in the third week of August. Westpac ditched Bank of Melbourne as a local brand in 2004, seven years after it took over the regional bank.Under the new timetable, Westpac will replace St George branding with Bank of Melbourne branding at 34 branches in Victoria in three weekends' time.The bank has been slowly ramping up marketing activities for Bank of Melbourne, starting with tram hoardings in May.Westpac commenced the new campaign by giving away public transport tickets in the city of Melbourne yesterday to promote the new brand.And local recipients of sponsorship are acting on requests to remove St George advertising signs, from local sports fields, for example.Westpac is counting on the reintroduction of the Bank of Melbourne brand to lift its market share in Victoria by several percentage points. It believes there is an under-exploited opportunity to market "regional" bank-branded services.On the other hand, the St George brand failed to gain much traction in Victoria both before and after Westpac's takeover of St George Bank in 2008.Westpac plans to open 14 new branches with BOM branding this year; 30 next year, and another 30 in 2013, building to its target of at least 90 new branches in Victoria for the Westpac group.Existing Westpac branches - many of them acquired through the takeover of Bank of Melbourne in 1997 - will retain their existing branding.The bank will continue to open new St George-branded branches elsewhere in Australia.Separately, the Financial Review today reports that Citi is looking at opening between 25 and 30 new branches over the next three years.