You have to be careful when going is good: Suryoday Small Finance Bank CEO

The key takeaway is we must be substantially capitalised at all points of time, says R Bhaskar Babu

It has been a tough journey for Suryoday Small Finance Bank (Suryoday SFB) ever since it started out as a microfinance player. It hit an air pocket during demonetisation and was more than singed earlier by the crisis in undivided Andhra Pradesh’s microfinance industry (MFI). R Bhaskar Babu, the SFB’s managing director and chief executive officer, spoke to Hamsini Karthik on how the past has shaped the business model, and the plot ahead. Edited excerpts:

How has Suryoday’s business been shaped by its past — be it demonetisation or the Andhra Pradesh (AP) microfinance crisis?

Demonetisation took away substantial profits between FY17