Bandhan Finacial Services Pvt Ltd is looking at setting up about 600 branches across 22 States before it begins full-fledged banking operations.
These 600-odd branches will come up over an 18-month time-frame.
The West Bengal-based micro-finance institution (MFI), and IDFC beat 21 applicants — including Aditya Birla Nuvo, Bajaj Finserv, Indiabulls and L&T Finance — which had applied to the RBI for securing a banking licence.
According to Chandra Shekhar Ghosh, Chairman and Managing Director, Bandhan Financial Services, the focus would be to cater to its existing customer-base of 55 lakh. As such, it would require approximately 600-odd bank branches to cater to them.
The bank, he said, would be called Bandhan Bank.
“Our aim is to ensure that my entire 55-lakh customer base is catered to when we start providing banking services. Hence, we would like to start operations across all the bank branches simultaneously,” Ghosh told reporters on the sidelines of an interactive session organised by the city-based Bharat Chamber of Commerce. The CMD was hopeful of staring banking operations over the next 18 months. Bandhan, which operates in 22 States, including West Bengal, has a net worth of ₹1,100 crore and a loan book of ₹6,200 crore.