CSFB becomes first differentiated bank in country to start operations

Zee Media Bureau

Mumbai: Kicking off the era of differentiated banking in country, Capital Small Finance Bank (CSFB) has beome the first ever differentiated bank to start operations after getting license told RBI governor Raghuram Rajan on Monday.

CSFB, earlier known as Capital Local Area Bank, was given the licence recently. It became the first Small Finance Bank and the second differentiated bank after Bharti Airtel's Payment Bank to get the final go-ahead.

As CSFB was already operational as a local area bank, it was easy for it to start functioning. According to reports, the Jalandhar-headquartered bank started with 10 branches from yesterday.

"My sense is, this is going to create a revolution in the banking sphere. And a revolution in the banking sphere will create easier access to finance for small entities," Rajan said, delivering the Y B Chavan Memorial Lecture here.

The governor said he expects each of these banks to start with a higher-than-required capital of Rs 500-600 crore, which will entail having an asset book of up to Rs 6,000 crore and stressed that these will not be "tiny banks".

With PTI inputs