Bandhan Financial institution impact: RBI declines Annapurna Finance’s common financial institution request

The Reserve Financial institution of India, in a cautious transfer, declined Annapurna Finance Restricted’s utility for a common financial institution license made in January 2023. The regulator, expressing hesitation about awarding a full-service financial institution license to the Odissa-based lender, largely specializing in microfinance loans, gave Annapurna Finance the choice to turn out to be a small finance financial institution.

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Nevertheless, it’s gathered from sources with information of the event that Annapurna had declined the choice put forth by the regulator. “Annapurna’s thought was to turn out to be a common financial institution as a result of it might allow them to function in companies way more than what they’re doing. As an SFB, the corporate doesn’t see a lot of incremental worth proposition and given how a majority of SFBs are nonetheless but to take a dominant share within the trade, didn’t wish to strive that route,” mentioned a supply quoted earlier. It’s understood that the identical has been communicated to the regulator.

When contacted, Dibyajyoti Pattanaik, the corporate’s director, mentioned, “we do not know about this matter, and we have now not acquired any communication from RBI on this regard.”

Just lately, Piramal Alternate options Belief, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Piramal Enterprises, introduced that it’ll purchase a ten.4 per cent stake in Annapurna Finance for ₹300 crore of money consideration.

Level of discomfort

Regardless of 9 years of operations as a common financial institution, Bandhan Financial institution’s mortgage e-book is closely tiled in the direction of microfinance loans. Taking a cue from Bandhan’s expertise, there have been issues raised about Annapurna’s capacity to diversify its mortgage e-book past MFI. With such excessive MFI publicity, Mint Avenue officers could have doubtless thought-about SFB a greater choice in comparison with common financial institution for Annapurna Finance. The share of MFI loans stood at 87 per cent as on December 31, 2023. Nevertheless, when it comes to geographical presence, the share of loans originating from Odisha was 18.2 per cent, with Bihar (18.3 per cent) and Madhya Pradesh (15.2 per cent) rising as sturdy markets exterior the house.