Axis Bank to strengthen presence in semi-urban, rural areas

Private lender Axis Bank is making heavy investments in semi-urban and rural areas in terms of providing infrastructure as these areas offer potential in driving the growth of the business, a top bank official said.
Besides, the bank would also focus on its "unsecured business" portfolio including personal loans and doubling up credit card business, Axis Bank President Retail Lending and Payments Jairam Sridharan said.
"Our focus is on unsecured business. Unsecured business is nine per cent of our total retail lending. Total retail lending size is about Rs 90,000 crore," he told reporters.
According to him, the banks' exposure in personal loan portfolio is about Rs 5,000 crore.

On expansion of the bank's business, he said the bank was looking at doubling the size of credit card customers from the existing 1.50 million.
"In credit cards business last quarter we crossed 1.50 million. The monthly spent over credit cards is about Rs 1,000 crore per month. I would like the credit card business to double the current size over the next three years", he said.

On tapping the semi-urban and rural areas, he said the bank was making investments heavily in providing infrastructure and in distribution network.
"For example in the past we were offering one or two big products in small towns. But now we are offering all our products. We are offering credit cards to new customers", he said.

"Basically, semi-urban and rural branches presence is 52 per cent of our total branches (2,505). This (52 per cent) number used to be 42 per cent in March 2012. It already increased and would continue to grow up", he said.