Mumbai: Bharatiya Mahila Bank Limited, first women’s bank in India and a wholly owned Government institution will have 25 branches across the main cities of the country by end of this year and go for additional 55 branches in 2014-15 in other cities of the country.
Chairman and Managing Director of the Bank Usha Ananthasubramanian, who was in Panaji to inaugurate bank’s 14th branch on Tuesday, described the bank as a channel for women’s education, employment and empowerment. She spoke of bank’s mandate to advance loans on priority to women on a 70:30 ratio in women’s favour and disclosed its early initiatives like tie-up with Tata Motors for vehicles for women with reduced margin, with Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) for loans for girl students of Chartered Accountancy and plans to finance more girl CAs (who happen to be 40 per cent) to take up independent practice, etc.
The CMD said that keeping working women in mind and to help they continue their jobs; the bank has designed special loan product to set up day care centers and more such innovative and special loan products that have been designed for the benefit of women.
In Goa, she said the bank would take advantage of existence of Common Civil Code by virtue of which women get equal ownership of immovable and other property along with their spouses, contrary to other parts of the country.
She was aware that in Goa the bank Credit, Deposit ratio was low at 31 per cent on an average and felt that her bank can take advantage of women’s ownership of immovable property to foray into advances for women in a big way.
Bureau Report
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