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The Reserve Bank of India on Monday said Unity Small Finance Bank (Unity SFB) Ltd has commenced operations as a small finance bank (SFB) with effect from November 1.
Unity SFB, which has been jointly established by the Centrum Financial Services Ltd (CFSL) and Resilient Innovations Private Limited (BharatPe) to carry on SFB business in India, was granted banking licence by RBI on October 13.
“The bank, which will be a digital first bank, commences operations with Centrum’s MSME and micro finance businesses and teams that has a capital infusion of about ₹1,100 crore, total assets worth ₹2,400 crore, active customer base of over 2 lakh, 145 offices including a branch in Centrum House, Mumbai,” said Centrum Group and BharatPe in a joint statement.
‘Tech-first products’
Jaspal Bindra, Executive Chairman, Centrum Group, said, “We aim to make it a truly new age bank. The bank is well capitalised, significantly higher than the minimum regulatory requirement (of ₹200 crore), giving us the platform to build a robust technological infrastructure, hire the best talent and work with credible vendor partners.”
Ashneer Grover, Co-Founder and Managing Director, BharatPe, said that with the capitalisation and approvals in place, Unity SFB will now focus on building tech-first products. RBI had accorded “in-principle” approval to CFSL, a wholly owned subsidiary of Centrum Capital, on June 18 to set up a SFB.
The aforementioned approval was in specific pursuance to CFSL’s February 2021 offer in response to the scam-hit Punjab and Maharashtra Co-operative (PMC) bank’s November 2020 Expression of Interestnotification.
Amalgamation process
The grant of banking licence to Unity SFB and commencement of its operations sets the stage for RBI to place in the public domain a draft scheme of amalgamation of PMC Bank with the SFB. The last step will be the government’s sanction for the scheme.
Bindra expects the amalgamation to be complete by next month-end. This development should warm the distressed hearts of PMC bank depositors. They have been struggling to get their deposits back for more than two years amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
Once CFSL takes over PMC bank, it would get a ready-made branch network of about 100 branches in Mumbai and in a few States. CFSL provides credit to small and mid-size companies.
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