Micro Units Development & Refinance Agency Ltd (MUDRA) plans to step up promotion of MUDRA card this fiscal so that more beneficiaries of MUDRA loans could enjoy the benefits of this card, a top official said.

“In the little over two years since the launch of MUDRA, the banks may have opened about 3 crore MUDRA loan accounts. However, the MUDRA cards issued by them till date are only about 8 lakh cards. There is a huge gap and big opportunity for card base to grow,” Jiji Mammen, Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer, told BusinessLine here on Friday.

Ideally, all those using MUDRA loans for working capital should use the MUDRA cards. However, that is not the case.

“Maybe there is lack of awareness. Banks will also have to play a role in pushing it. People still like to draw the entire money and keep it with them even if they don’t require it. They have to better understand the benefits and flexibility of having a debit card (MUDRA Card) ”, he said.

MUDRA Cards are basically debit cards running on RUPAY platform of the National Payments Corporation of India.

In the first year after MUDRA’s launch in April 2015, as many as 5.7 lakh MUDRA cards were issued. In the second year, only 2 lakh MUDRA cards were issued. So far this year, about 40,000 cards have been issued by banks, said Mammen. Meanwhile,MUDRA, which is now a non-banking finance company (NBFC) wholly-owned by SIDBI, has no plans to raise capital this fiscal, but may raise money from the market for ‘working funds’ purposes, said Mammen.

“We are sufficiently capitalised at about ₹1,750 crore and are not looking at any capital raising this fiscal,” he said.

As for the enactment of a separate law for MUDRA to run as a financial institution, Mammen said that it is for the government to take the final call.

“We want MUDRA to be a development financial institution,” he said.

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