Finance Minister P Chidambaram on Wednesday asked the Bharatiya Mahila Bank (BMB) to recruit people laterally to the women-focused bank. Lateral employment is not a common phenomenon in the country’s public sector banks.

Bringing in people laterally will help devise ‘innovative strategies’ to grow this bank, Chidambaram said at a press conference here after his first-ever address to the Board of state-owned BMB.

When asked about the scope of lateral hiring, he said, it would mean getting people from outside the banking system with expertise in areas such as marketing and other skill sets.

Performance Over the last six months of its existence, BMB has built up an employee force of about 200 people, with almost half of them coming on deputation from other public sector banks. The rest are mostly direct recruits. Commenting on BMB’s performance, Chidambaram said that it was “satisfactory”, but the bank needed to harness technology and innovate in order to grow rapidly.

This bank is yet to finalise its financial statements for the period ended March 2014.

BMB had a branch network of 23 branches till end March 2014 and plans are afoot to add another 57 in the current financial year.

Chidambaram wanted BMB to not rely only on branch network to expand presence, but also quickly get on with the business correspondent model to expand reach.

Asked about the key learning for the bank in the first six months of its existence, Usha Ananthasubramanian, Chairman and Managing Director, BMB said a main learning was that “women are bankable and women need banking services”.

BMB has so far mobilised deposits of ₹87 crore and provided loans amounting to ₹89 crore.

>srivats.kr@thehindu.co.in

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