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ESAF Small Finance Bank is opening its 60th branch at Andheri (East) in Mumbai tomorrow. The erstwhile micro-finance lender, which converted itself into a small finance bank after getting RBI licence, began operations in March this year.
Announcing the launch of its Mumbai operations, K Paul Thomas, MD and CEO, said the bank, which currently has 56 branches in Kerala and three in Tamil Nadu, will expand to about 145 branches by the end of the fiscal.
As of September 30, the bank had garnered ₹1,043 crore from 18.43 lakh depositors and lent ₹2,934 crore to about 12.62 lakh borrowers.
Currently, 98 per cent of the loans are to the micro-finance sector. But the bank has started expanding into other areas, including housing finance, gold loans, and SME loans, with a limit of ₹10 lakh per loan, Thomas said. This will increase to ₹25 lakh (the ceiling prescribed for small finance bank lending) in the next quarter, he added.
The bank expects to get ‘scheduled bank’ status in a couple of months, which is expected to give it access to the inter-bank borrowing market and help reduce its cost of funds by about one percentage point.
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