ESAF SFB Crosses 1000 Cr Deposit Base

KOCHI:
ESAF Small Finance Bank, which started banking operations from March this year, has garnered a deposit base of Rs 1,000 Crore and Rs. 3,000 Crore in loans and advances in the first 7 months of its operations.
K. Paul Thomas, MD & CEO, ESAF Small Finance Bank said that there has been an encouraging response for the higher interest rates offered on fixed and savings deposits. With this momentum the bank hopes to garner Rs 2,500 Cr deposits, Rs. 5,000 Cr in loans and advances and 10,000 Cr total business by the end of last quarter, he added.
ESAF, which transformed itself from a Micro-finance Institution (MFI) to a Small Finance Bank, is seeking to shore up its deposit base as it could not do so in its erstwhile form. Currently, ESAF has total assets of Rs 3,500 Crore and has around 360 banking outlets with over 18 lakh satisfied customers. At the end of the second quarter, ESAF Bank has registered a cumulative business of over Rs.6,000 Crore.
K. Paul Thomas further added that ESAF Small Finance Bank proposed to include 1300 new villages in the financial inclusion programme, thereby taking the total number of villages covered under the scheme to 4200 by the end of the year. It also envisaged 6000 financial literacy programmes to achieve the stated financial inclusion target. The bank plans to launch over 115 new retail outlets, 460 banking outlets and 100 ATMs across the country during the current financial year and it intends to add 5 more states within the next six months.
The bank offers a host of modern banking services like ATMs, Debit Card, Safe Deposit Lockers, Internet banking, mobile banking, SMS banking, RTGS, NEFT, CTS etc.,. The door step delivery services, SKYPE facility at branches and Hrudaya Deposit Scheme are some of the exclusive features offered by ESAF Small Finance Bank.
The formation of ESAF Small Finance Bank was the first instance of an NBFC-MFI in Kerala transforming into a Bank. Services of ESAF Small Finance Bank is now available in 10 different states covering Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Chattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Pondicherry and Jharkhand. It received an in-principle approval from the RBI in October, 2015 and the bank was launched on March 10, 2017.