Mahila Bank targets business mix of Rs 60,000 cr by 2020

BMB expected to launch loans for setting up catering services and hygienic day-care centres for children of working women

Bharatiya Mahila Bank, the first all-women bank inaugurated last month, expects its business to touch Rs 60,000 crore in the next seven years.

"We are aiming to achieve business mix (total deposit and advances) of Rs 60,000 crore by 2020," Bharatiya Mahila Bank (BMB) Chairperson and Managing Director Usha Ananthasubramanian told PTI.

The bank has launched a few women specific products and is in process of launching few more, she said.

Some of the special products to be launched shortly include loans for setting up catering services and hygienic day-care centres for children of working women, she added.

The bank has also decided its fixed deposit rates at 9% for one year, almost at par with leading public sector banks, and savings interest rate at 4.5%, higher than what other public sector banks offer.

It also plans to add 16 more branches to its network in the next four months.

The bank intends to fulfil its obligation of meeting 25% of its branches in rural and unbanked areas from the next fiscal.

Earlier this month, the bank, a pioneering initiative to empower women, was launched with a corpus of Rs 1,000 crore to function as a universal bank.

Coinciding with the 96th birthday of late Indira Gandhi, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh inaugurated the first of seven branches of the bank in the presence of UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi in Mumbai on November 19.

The idea of an exclusive lender for women was mooted at the Jaipur Congress plenary last year.

The bank with staff strength of 100 at the moment has drawn on a majority of cadre from state-run lenders. Besides, it has recruited 110 freshers in officer cadre.

In another first, the BMB has an all-woman, eight-member board.

The board consists of a business graduate sarpanch from Rajasthan, Chhavi Rajawat, Dalit entrepreneur Kalpana Saroj, who turned around a tubes business, retired public banker Nupur Mitra, academic Pakiza Samad, private equity professional Renuka Ramnath, Godrej Group executive Director Tania Dubash and Priya Kumar, a government nominee.