SBI's IPO Finance picks up at Ahmedabad

Gujarat has been a hub of equity investors and the State Bank of India (SBI) hit a jackpot with its IPO finance product in Gujarat as the bank had a huge disbursement within a short span of one month after the product was launched nationwide and as well as in the state.

According to the SBI, the product had attracted the investing community in Gujarat as these have been a unique financial product that gives easy access to the common public and the IPO Finance product was able to garner a huge amount of funds.

H C Pattnaik, chief general manager, said, "Within one month of the launch of the product, we had 1,500 customers that availed of finance for IPO only from Ahmedabad."

According to the bank, until now on an average Rs 200,000 had been disbursed to each individual and that comes to about Rs 3 crore of disbursement towards IPO Finance product in just one month.

"The bank will now focus on other centres in Gujarat to develop the product and its acceptability in small towns too," adds Pattnaik.

The bank will now focus on cities like Surat, Vadodara, Rajkot and Bhavnagar. The bank had already deployed its staff to market the product in a much more aggressive manner in all the four cities and it is also looking at the possibility to explore the smaller towns in Gujarat.

"We are also keen to explore the smaller town as there are huge investing communities that invest in stocks," adds Pattnaik.

"There are approximately 5 lakh active investors in Gujarat and in the next three to four months we are targeting 2 per cent of the total active investors in Gujarat for our IPO Finance product," said Pattnaik.

According to the bank, its aim is to tap nearly 10,000 customer for its IPO Finance product.

"The products have not gained much in other parts of the country, while it was able to pick up in Ahmedabad," adds Pattnaik. The bank is targeting smaller towns like Ujha where there is a conglomeration of large investors.

The IPO finance had recently been launched by the SBI to enable customers to subscribe to the various IPOs. To avail of the loan under the product, an investor has to open savings accounturrent account, a demat account and online trading account with the bank.

The bank is focussing on expanding its retail product sales in the state and would give a thrust to products that have a high degree of acceptability in the region.