Following its first round of expansion, comprising 25 branches across States by the end of the current financial year, Bharatiya Mahila Bank plans to set up 55 more branches in 2014-15 across smaller cities and unbanked areas.

According to its Chairman and Managing Director Usha Ananthasubramanian, who was in the city to inaugurate the bank’s 14th branch on Tuesday, the bank is a channel for women’s education, employment and empowerment. The bank will open its 15th branch in Jaipur on Wednesday, she said.

BMB, the first all-woman bank in the country, accepts deposits from everyone, but lends predominantly to women, she said. The bank’s other initiatives include a tie-up with Tata Motors for vehicle loans for women at reduced interest rates, a tie-up with the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India to provide loans for girl students studying chartered accountancy and providing assistance to women chartered accounts to set up independent practice, among others.

Keeping working women in mind and to help them continue in their jobs, the bank has designed special loan product to set up day care centres, the CMD said.

Educational loans, loans to set up beauty parlours and catering units, apart from normal banking products, such as vehicle and home loans, are some of the other products designed for the benefit of women, she said.

In Goa, Ananthasubramanian said the bank would take advantage of the existence of the Common Civil Code by virtue of which women get equal ownership of immovable and other property along with their spouses. In other parts of the country, bankers face this problem while financing as women do not have ownership of houses and other immovable properties, she pointed out .

In reply to a question she said she was aware that in Goa, the bank credit:deposit ratio was low at 31 per cent on an average and felt that her bank can take advantage of women’s ownership of immovable property to foray into advances for women in a big way.

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