Women seeking more gold loans, home loans
Last year, the Udaipur Mahila Samridhi Urban Cooperative added 3500 new women customers:
The Udaipur Mahila Samridhi Urban Cooperative Bank, popularly known as Mahila Samridhi Bank, is one of the youngest urban cooperative banks in Rajasthan. The bank was founded by Kiran Maheshwari and Kiran Jain. It aims to help women and provide them finance to improve their living standard.
WOMEN CUSTOMERS
The bank has employed mostly female staff to develop a friendly environment for women customers. Usha Bhatt, General Manager, states that the bank has approximately 25,000 customers, of which more than 60% are women. The bank is known for its rich heritage, integrity, adherence to prudent banking practices and technology.
The bank has all type of products like housing loans, MSME business finance, vehicle loans cash credit limits, mortgage finance, gold loan, etc and its core portfolio is business and MSME finance. Says Usha: “We have the capacity to lend Rs15 million to individual woman borrowers, but more than 50% of our borrowers are enjoying credit facility of less than `2.5 million. Our customers comprise mostly middle age (30-45 years) women, specially those who are interested in modern era banking like mobile banking, UPI, IMPS, etc.”
DEPOSITS, LOANS TO WOMEN
The bank has 4500 women members and approximately 18,500 women depositors. It has provided loans and advances to around 3000 women borrowers. Usha says the business done with these women customers is `1.35 billion in deposits and `580 million in advances. “Our women customers have welcomed our daily deposit scheme (pigmy deposit) for small savings. They are also interested in other products as well, like gold loans. We often undertake to provide them training to improve their business skills and that too at no cost,” she adds.
As the pandemic has impacted the local businesses, the bank has introduced new products available at relaxed rate of interest. “We have undertaken to refinance existing business loans of many enterprises and we are offering customized products as per requirements. One such product is covid loans which come with attractive rates of interest and 2% subsidy,” says Usha.
HOME LOANS DEMAND UP
Usha says generally, women customers prefer savings products and they need to deposit small savings for longer tenure. Most of them use saving accounts, recurring and fixed deposits. But post-covid, she says, more women customers are seeking home loans as they want to settle down in their own houses. “I think these end users will create huge demand in real estate,” she says.
The bank has made use of the opportunity and has started offering PMAY housing loans to individuals by selecting 5 big affordable housing projects. Says Usha: “As on date, 93 women borrowers have benefited with loan amounts ranging from `600,000 to `2 million. Overall `85 million has been disburse as housing finance.”
DIGITAL BANKING
The Udaipur Mahila Samridhi Urban Cooperative Bank is first cooperative bank in Rajasthan to introduce anywhere branch banking. Today, it offers BHIM UPI facility and almost all the digital banking products that commercial banks offer. It has also introduced mobile banking facility with RTGS, NEFT, IMPS, UPI and BBPS. The bank plans to set up a data center at its own premises and this will mean it will employ more woman staff for the IT department. The bank’s key technology partners include TM Systems and Sarvatra Technologies. It has tieups with ICICI Bank and Yes Bank to offer various services to its customers.
STAFF WELFARE
The bank has employed mostly women employee to make its women customers feel comfortable. Says Usha: “I think women are more career minded, and in a cooperative bank they feel assured that they can have more opportunities to grow and have a high degree of job satisfaction. We also help them grow through training and by motivating them to take up career courses and achieve targets. The bank has purchased Mediclaim insurance for its staff and family members. We also provide them loans at low interest rates.”
GROWTH TARGET
As per unaudited accounts of the bank, CASA deposits have increased by 48% and profit up by 142% in the current financial year compared to the previous year. It is a fact that the number of women customers of the bank, especially younger women, is going up and in 2020-21, the bank has added 3500 new women customers and has set the target to achieve 80% women customers from present 60% by 2022.