ESAF Small Finance Bank on Monday announced the opening of its first branch in Delhi on December 19, with the bank committing to work for the ‘weak and underserved sections of society’.
“There are a lot of opportunities in rural and urban India to work with the financially weak and underserved,” K. Paul Thomas, founder, MD and CEO said. “There are especially a lot of opportunities to work with the urban poor.”
The banking outlet at Delhi, Karol Bagh will be the 63rd outlet by ESAF since it started operations in March this year. The company aims to increase this to a total of 145 banking outlets by March next.
“We need to brand as a pan India bank and hence we have decided to open branches in all metro cities in India,” Mr Thromas said. “We have plans to open new outlets in three more places in Delhi, including Paschim Vihar, Rohini and Lajpath Nagar along with other metros like Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Mumbai, followed by Calcutta.”
So far, the bank has crossed ₹1,450 crore deposits within eight months of its operations, and is looking to increase this number to ₹2500 crore by the end of this financial year.