Ujjivan Small Finance Bank commences operations in Gujarat

Ahmedabad: Ujjivan Small Finance Bank Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of Ujjivan Financial Services Ltd. today announced the commencement of its banking operations in Gujarat with with the launch of two branches in Ahmedabad.

Addressing a press conference on the occasion Samit Ghosh, MD & CEO, Ujjivan Small Finance Bank Ltd said that since February this year so far 73 of the all around 460 branches of erstwhile Ujjivan Financial Services Ltd across the country have been converted in to full fledged banks meant mainly to cater to the small businessmen and lower income people. The number will be taken to 160 by the end of this year and all the branches would be converted in to banks in 3 years. In the next two years all the 30 branches of the Ujjivan Financial Services Ltd spread across 14 districts catering to 1.8 lakh customers of Gujarat would also be converted in to bank.

‘We are not a small bank as such but our focus was to serve those people who have no access to formal banking so far. We have also tried to keep the so called hidden charges to its minimum. Our debit card which also is linked with Aadhar can be used unlimited number of times without any charges and it can also be used at other banks six times a month,’ he said adding that It started banking operations in February 2017 with pilot branches in Bengaluru. Today it has presence in Gujarat, Maharashtra, New Delhi, West Bengal, Himachal Pradesh,Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Haryana, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Pudducherry.

Ujjivan has been operating in Ahmedabad since June 2014 with 3 active branches.These branches cater to over21,400 customers in the city. The existing microfinance customers would soon be on-boarded as bank customers. The process of on-boarding over 4200 existing customers has already been initiated, while the transition for the rest will take place in a phased manner.

Ujjivan is present across 14 districts in Gujarat with 30 branches, catering to over 1.8 lakh customers.

The first branch of the bank in Gujarat was opened in Nava Vadaj and was inaugurated by noted Gandhian Ms. Ela Bhatt, Founder, Self-Employed Women’s Association of India (SEWA). The other one was in CTM area. Two more branches will be opened in Vadoara soon, he said.

Ujjivan SFB’s goal is to build a leading state of the art mass market bank in five years to serve the vast un-served and under-served customer base who currently are outside the formal banking system.

DeshGujarat