Our ready customer base is of 700,000: R Baskar Babu

Interview with Chief executive, Suryoday

What are the capital-raising plans to meet the Rs 100-crore minimum paid-up equity capital requirement?

We are well-capitalised. In two to three months, we plan to raise Rs 40 crore to 50 crore. For this, we have partnered our existing investors and promoters. Our investors include Housing Development Finance Corporation, subsidiary HDFC Life, International Finance Corporation, Alok Capital, Aavishkaar Goodwell, and Developing World Markets.

When do you expect to start operations?

We have the 18-month window available for beginning operations. We will be able to start operations in 12 to 18 months.

What will be the growth plans?

There will not be any difference in the size of the growth we had planned before being granted a small finance bank licence. But in 12 months, the focus will be on ensuring we become a bank offering the best services. That will be more of a challenge. We will be able to achieve 50 to 60 per cent growth in two years or more.

In the conversion from a micro finance institution to bank, how do you plan to scale up the operations?

We will begin to offer more products to our existing customer base, or a similar kind of customer base instead of moving into a completely new customer segment. Today, we are offering only one lending product, but now we will be able to offer multiple products to our customers.

How will your current micro-finance business be able to aid the small finance bank operations?

Our ready customer base is of 700,000. And we are acquiring around 40,000 to 50,000 customers every month. So, assuming we have a million customers by the time we start operations, we will be starting with a great platform of a million customers.