10 microlenders to establish small banks for loans to unbanked, small businesses & unorganized sector.
Q. RBI has shortlisted how many micro lenders to establish small banks for loan advancement in relation to unbanked, small businesses, with effect from 17th September 2015?- Published on 18 Sep 15a. 15
b. 14
c. 10
d. 8
ANSWER: 10
RBI has shortlisted 10 micro lenders to establish small banks for loan advancement for unbanked, small businesses, micro and small industries as well as unorganised sectors which do not have access to large bank financing. From 10 entities granted approval in principle, 8 are micro-finance providers, one is a local area bank and the remaining is a non banking finance company. Small banks are akin to regular CoBs while scale of service will be smaller and these banks should generate 75% of business from the priority sector namely agriculture and areas where large banks are not present. Around 50% of their loans will be under INR 25 lakhs. Licenses for payment banks were recently issued as well. Much like payment banks, minimum paid up equity for small finance banks is INR 100 crore and RBI has said small banks can bring down initial contribution to 40% which can be lowered to 26% over the next 12 years. Sole NBFC in the list is AU Financiers set up in 1996. Other micro lenders chosen and their year of establishment is as follows:
- Capital Local Area Bank-2000
- Disha Microfin- 2009
- Equitas Holdings-2007
- ESAF Microfinance and Investments-1992
- Janalakshmi Financial Services-19999
- GVN(NE) Microfinance-2008
- Suryoday Micro Finance-2008
- Ujivan Financial Services-2005
- Utkarsh Micro Finance-2009
