UAE Exchange & Financial Services will apply for a universal banking licence once the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) final guidelines on this front are issued this fiscal, its Managing Director George Antony has said.
The non-banking finance company (NBFC) – a leading financial services provider – is not looking to apply for a payments bank or small bank licence, Antony said.
“We will only go in for universal banking licence. There is no interest on our part for either payments bank or small bank licence,” Antony told
RBI has promised to issue the final guidelines for issuing universal banking licence in the current fiscal.
Antony said a payments bank licence would not be suitable for the UAE Exchange as such a structure will not allow it to undertake lending operations.
Currently, UAE Exchange has a thriving personal loan business with a book size of ₹400-450 crore. “We are aiming to take the personal loan book size to ₹800 crore by end-March 2015,” Antony said. As for a small bank, this structure is also not suitable for UAE Exchange given the size of its existing operations in India, he pointed out. UAE Exchange – which is primarily a money changer – has 351 branches across the country. Plans are afoot to add at least 50 new branches a year for the next four to five years, Antony said.
RBI has already issued draft guidelines for payments banks and small banks and is now in the process of finalising the same.