The CEO drew out the story of the transformation of Bandhan from an NGO into a micro-finance company, and then, to a bank. Speaking about his initial days, Ghosh recalled, “I've taken the money from moneylenders at 7.5% interest per month, simply to prove to the banks that this model is perfect, and these people will return the money".
The bank addresses the financial needs of the most unbanked and underbanked section of the country and relies on the scale to create an impact on the country. "Because India is a big country, if you do not play to scale, there is no impact on the country."
Citing Ghosh's statement, the Isha Leadership Academy tweeted, "Small is beautiful but big is necessary because our country is big".
Last month the private sector lender reported a net profit of ₹209.30 crore in the quarter that ended in September 2022 on the back of a fall in bad loans.
The Kolkata-headquartered bank's total income during the July-September period of 2022-23 grew by 8.5% at ₹2,669.4 crore as against ₹2,459.9 crore in the same period of 2021-22, the bank said in a regulatory filing.
Bandhan Bank said its housing finance division achieved its best-ever growth of 32 % year-on-year and the retail division grew 112 % from a year ago. The commercial banking division grew 96 % yearly.
Among other key parameters, the net interest income, interest earned minus interest expended, rose by 13.3 % in Q2FY23 at ₹2,193 crore, as against ₹1,935.4 crore in Q2FY22, the bank said.
However, the non-interest income fell by 9.2 % during the quarter to ₹476.4 crore from ₹524.5 crore a year ago. Net NPAs too improved to 1.86 % against 3.04 %. The provisioning requirement fell to ₹1,279.7 crore for the quarter as against ₹5,613.5 crore in the year-ago quarter. The net interest margin for the lender stood at 7 % for Q2FY23. Total advances grew by 17.4% to ₹95,834.9 crore at end of September 2022 against ₹81,661.2 crore by a year ago same period, the lender said. Total deposits increased by 21.3 % to ₹99,365.8 crore.
The bank, during the quarter, has written off ₹3,535 crore which is mainly due to micro-credit customers.
The holding company, Bandhan Financial Holdings Limited, has received approval from the RBI for setting up an asset management company to run the mutual fund business. Bandhan Bank will start the credit card business on its own during the next financial year.
