The private sector Bandhan Bank, which will be inaugurated by Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley here on August 23, will be the first bank in India to remain open on all seven days of the week.
Initially, 18 of its branches will be seven-day ones and this practice will soon be extended to all its 500 odd branches, informed Bandhan Bank Chairman & Managing Director Chandra
Shekhar Ghosh.
While it will have 500 branches functioning as full-fledged commercial banking units from the day of its launch, Bandhan Bank will also operate 2,022 local units that were earlier a part of the Bandhan micro-finance institution (MFI). Ghosh’s target is to achieve 1 crore account-holders on Bandhan Bank’s launch day itself. It will also open accounts for all 66 lakh individuals who have taken <g data-gr-id="43">loansn</g> from the erstwhile Bandhan MFI.
To add further to its lucrativeness in a fiercely competitive market, Bandhan Bank has fixed low rates of interest for both savings and term deposits. “The savings interest rates have been fixed at 4.25 per cent below Rs 1 lakh and 5 per cent above Rs 1 lakh,” said Ghosh. “For term deposits, the maximum interest rate has been fixed at 8.5 per cent for one to three years and senior citizens would get an additional 0.50 per cent.”
Ghosh added that the bank has already started distribution of account opening forms from its branches. Besides Jaitley, who will inaugurate the bank, the launch ceremony will feature a galaxy of stars from the financial, industrial and business world including Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Deputy Governor H R Khan.
Earlier a micro-finance institution, Bandhan had received in-principle approval from the Reserve Bank of India in April last year to start universal banking.