Small Fin Bank Focus On Secured Loans
As a country we need to guard against a possible 3rd wave of the pandemic, P N Vasudevan, Managing Director and CEO of Equitas Small Finance Bank, said.
MUMBAI, June 5 (The CONNECT) – Equitas Small Finance Bank hopes that as and when the severity of Wave -2 recedes from the country and life comes back to normal, its customers are expected to bounce back quickly, since they deal largely in daily use products and services.
“We are beginning to see some relaxations in the lockdowns in June and hope that 2nd quarter would be largely back to normal,” P N Vasudevan, Managing Director and CEO of Equitas Small Finance Bank, said.
In view of the lockdowns in different parts of the country, normal commercial life has been disrupted. “Our customers who are majorly small traders and business people engaged in daily use products, were unable to open their shop and their livelihood has been accordingly impacted,” he said.
“Our conscious plan to grow the unsecured micro finance book at a slower pace compared to the rest, has helped mitigate the overall credit cost impact on the bank. As of 31st March 2021, the unsecured micro finance advances were 18% while the remaining 81% were secured loans. The least impacted product which is Small Business Loans secured by house property, constitutes 45% of the total advances,” Vasudevan explained.
Last year the bank had seen as much as 90% by number of clients and 98% by value avail moratorium in April ’20. Post September ’20, a strong pick up in collection efficiency helped end the year at pre-covid level collection efficiencies.
The bank will study the impact of stress created by wave 2 on our customers and any possible restructuring they may require to help revive their livelihood.
“As a country we need to guard against a possible 3rd wave of the pandemic. While wearing masks and maintaining distance is important, large scale vaccinations is currently believed to be the only long-term tool available to us to protect ourselves against any such future waves,” he said.
Equitas have been doing its significant bit towards working with various State and local Governments in mass mobilising people for vaccination camps across the country. The bank has so far helped organise 656 vaccination camps across the country and helped vaccinate around 42,800 people who are all from the low-income segments.
