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Jana Small Finance Bank believes that its business in terms of disbursements is almost normal now with only microfinance loans yet to revert to pre-Covid levels.
“We are back to business in a normalised sense in terms of new disbursements...Housing loans is higher than pre- Covid level. Gold loans even during Covid was higher than pre-Covid level. Lending to small businesses is back to pre- Covid level,” said Ajay Kanwal, Managing Director and CEO, Jana Small Finance Bank.
Only micro-finance loans are still at 60 per cent of pre-Covid level, Kanwal said in an interaction with BusinessLine .
Also read: Jana SFB expands its branch network to 601
“These customers are careful when they want to borrow. It is a kind of foodchain. When large corporates do well, they give order to vendors, who in turn will give order to suppliers and so on. Our customers are last in this chain,” Kanwal said.
He however, expects more momentum in this customer segment in the fourth quarter of the fiscal from January 2021.
Meanwhile, Kanwal said bad loans is not much of an issue for the bank with about five to six per cent of customers impacted, who would like to pay slowly or have smaller EMIs.
“Covid has had some impact. But restructuring is less of an issue, the worry is when the borrower doesn’t pay, which will be a very minor proportion,” he said.
Also read: Jana SFB upbeat on ‘collection efficiency’ backed by steady improvement in repayments
Jana SFB is also working on its listing plans and the initial public offering could be targeted for March 2021.
The lender also digitally inaugurated 18 bank branches in Maharashtra on December 30 and could open another 10 to 15 branches across the country in the current fiscal year.
“As an SFB, one of the regulations is to convert all micro finance or asset centre branches into bank branches in a three year time frame. That task is now completed and we have 601 branches,” Kanwal said, adding that the bank would look at a few more rural branches before the year ends.
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