ORA-22288 when trying to read BLOB from Windows directory

I am trying to read BLOB from Windows directory located on the Oracle 11g DB server:

create or replace directory BLOB_DIR as 'C:\data\images';

grant read, write on directory BLOB_DIR to public;

set serveroutput on;

declare
    l_bfile  BFILE;
begin
    l_bfile := BFILENAME('BLOB_DIR', 'blob.jpg');
    DBMS_LOB.fileopen(l_bfile, DBMS_LOB.file_readonly);
    DBMS_LOB.fileclose(l_bfile);
end;
/

However, I am getting the following error:

ORA-22288: file or LOB operation FILEOPEN failed
ORA-06512: at "SYS.DBMS_LOB", line 744
ORA-06512: at line 5

I checked the directory and file exist and all the permissions are given to Everyone.

What am I doing wrong? How to get more specific error message?