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Our Bureau

Mangalore , Oct 24

ABN-AMRO Bank is planning to lend Rs 400 crore to 10 lakh women through micro-finance institutions (MFIs) by the end of 2008.

Speaking to newspersons on the occasion of the inauguration of the 22nd branch of the bank at Mangalore on Monday, Mr Ramesh Sobti, Executive Vice-President and Country Representative, ABN-Amro Bank N.V. (India), said that the bank had financed Rs 60 crore to 1.5 lakh women through 20 MFIs till now in the current fiscal. The bank wants to finance 1.75 lakh women by the end of the current year, he added.

"While banking in metropolitan and other major cites is one face of the bank, micro-financing is another face," he said, adding that micro-financing was a profitable venture. "The default rate in this form of lending is almost zero."

The bank has taken up micro-financing activities in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, and Orissa through MFIs.

He also said that the bank had made use of technology to the maximum while lending to rural women through MFIs.

To provide better service to rural women, all the field-level staff have been provided with simputers. These simputers have been programmed in five vernacular languages.

Mr Sobti said that the bank wants to have 24 branches by the end of the current year. Two more branches will be opened in Moradabad and Nashik soon.

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