Scoring in their second innings: NBFC entrepreneurs stage a revival

A clutch of shadow bank entrepreneurs have weathered the storm and are now evangelists for the business

“It’s time that the NBFC (non-banking financial companies) sector comes out of its own shadow as well as that of the banking sector. I am sure that NBFCs will play a significant role in achieving the dream of a $5 trillion economy going forward,” said M Rajeshwar Rao, deputy governor, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in February last year. It was the first ever ringing endorsement of NBFCs from a senior RBI official in a speech dramatically titled by the central bank’s staid standards: ‘No more a shadow (of a) bank’. 

Gunit Chadha, founder of APAC Financial Services (and the