RBI on September 16, 2015 granted in-principle approval to 10 entities to set up small finance banks. The in princile approval is valid for 18 months.The entities who got the permission are Ujjivan Financial Service (Bengaluru),Janalakshmi Financial Service ( Bengaluru) Au Financiers (Jaipur), Equitas Holdings (Chennai),Capital Local Area Bank (Punjab), Disha Microfin (Ahmedabad), ESAF Microfinance (Chennai), RGVN (North East) Micro Finance (Guwahati), Suryodaya Micro Finance(Navi Mumbai), Utkarsh Micro Finance (Varanashi). There were 72 applicants, however, RBI granted licence to only 10 who have been already in the business of extending credit facility to small borrowers who have had no access to formal crdits from banks.
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