Suryoday Small Finance Bank will expand its network through partnership-led outlets, the first of which was launched in Chennai on Wednesday.
Unlike full-scale branches that can be expensive to operate and staff, partnership-led branches are smaller, run by partners who can operate more than one branch, and will have a full-time bank staff to supervise operations, according to R Baskar Babu, CEO, SSFB.
The first such branch was opened today at Nanganallur, a Chennai suburb.
Flexible working hours
With a catchment area of a few thousand small traders, such small branches, with flexible working hours suited to the specific trade in the locality, offering service at the doorstep can be cost-efficient.
The partners are ideally persons with experience in the banking sector and are entrepreneurs, he said.
Suryoday was first incorporated as a micro-finance NBFC in 2008 and was subsequently licensed as a small finance bank; it launched operations in January 2017.
It is now concentrating on converting its 216 micro-finance branches into banking outlets and expanding its network using the partnership-led model.
As of December 2017, the bank had a deposit base of ₹500 crore and a gross loan portfolio of ₹1,352 crore.