Small Finance Bank licence holders start hunt for investors

Mumbai: With RBI granting in-principle approval to 10 entities to operate as Small Finance Banks, many of the successful bidders today said they will start the process of roping in investors.

"We have to start working on identifying Indian promoters, we have done a little work on that. Today, there is a lot of interest in the segment from the Indian investment community. We have to restructure ourselves so that within 18 months we are able to launch the bank hopefully," Samit Ghosh CEO of Ujjivan Financial Services said.

Another successful entity from Varanasi Utkarsh Micro Finance said it will explore private capital and it is in talks with some institutions.

"Certainly we will look for private capital also and in fact we are in talks with some of the institutions," Utkarsh Micro Finance director Govind Singh said.

Disha MicroFin CEO Sameer Nanavati said that some of the private equities have already invested in the firm.

Seeking to promote financial inclusion, RBI today granted in-principle approval to 10 entities to set up Small Finance Banks to provide basic banking services to small farmers and micro industries.

The approval has been granted within a month of RBI giving nod to 11 entities for launching Payments Banks.

The RBI statement said that the "in-principle" approval will be valid for 18 months to enable these entities comply with the guidelines on Small Finance Banks.

Another player which emerged successful, Janalakshmi Financial Services, said that it would create the right legal structure to be able to ensure that it complies all the conditions that the RBI has laid down.

"Our intention is to convert Janalakshmi into a bank and create a structure that the RBI has suggested under the universal bank category," the CEO of Bengaluru-based micro-finance institution V S Radhakrishnan said.

The Small Finance Banks can provide basic banking services like accepting deposits and lending to small farmers, micro business enterprises, micro and small industries and unorganised sector entities.

"Going forward, the Reserve Bank intends to use the learning from this licensing round to appropriately revise the guidelines and move to giving licences more regularly, that is, virtually on tap," the RBI said.

The central bank had received 72 applications for setting up small finance bank licences.