The upcoming bank plans to start by opening one crore accounts on day one of operation across 600 branches in 27 states; open branches in southern states too
It's an effort which can match the Jan Dhan Yojna in its size.
If the government's ambitious financial inclusion initiative, overseen by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, could open 1.5 crore no-frill bank accounts on the launch day, Chandra Shekhar Ghosh of Bandhan plans to achieve a similar feat.
The upcoming bank, Bandhan, being promoted by Ghosh, plans to start by opening one crore accounts on day one of operation across 600 branches in 27 states.
That doesn't seem far-fetched a target for Bandhan, which, in its micro-lender avatar, has a captive customer base of 65 lakh households.
"If a second person from every 65 lakh household that we cater to, opens a bank account we can meet this target on the first day itself," Chandra Shekhar Ghosh, chairman and managing director of Bandhan told dna.
But Bandhan doesn't like to get the low-hanging fruits only.
"We also plan to target the middle class as well as high net-worth customers also who will get attracted to us hopefully through the signage we are developing."
Ghosh doesn't see Jan Dhan as a competitor; news of Jan Dhan's success of opening 11.5 crore accounts being recognised by Guinness Book of World Records doesn't unnerve him.
"For us its more of an opportunity as Jan Dhan has taken efforts to create awareness across the country, and this would only help us to easily convince those households not having access to banking services to open accounts with us."
Apart from its existing strength in the eastern part of the country covering West Bengal, Assam, Tripura and Bihar, country's newest universal bank would spread to southern states with plans to open branches in states like Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala on that day.
"While our micro-finance business is spread over 22 states including UP and Maharashtra, we plan to open branches in four southern states where we don't have presence up till now. We don't want to be seen as an eastern focus bank only and will have an image of a bank with national identity," Ghosh said.
Bandhan in January inked deals for equity infusion totaling Rs 1,600 crore from International Finance Corp and GIC, Singapore's sovereign wealth fund, thus completing its effort to raise outside equity though the signing of term-sheets are yet to get completed.
Bandhan's micro-finance business has a liability of Rs 8,000 crore in form of loans taken from banks and financial institutions. As it becomes a bank, that loan would swell to about Rs 10,000 crore, considering that 21.5% SLR need to be maintained on that.
"We need to replace that through aggressive deposit mobilisation in the initial years. The bank won't compete for the top 10-15% of the population currently being served by most of the existing bank. We would be catering to the rest 85-90% of the population," he said.
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 "Chandra Shekhar Ghosh, chairman and managing director of Bandhan Bank")
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