A top official of Bandhan Bank stated that the lender has fixed its rates of interest for both savings as well as term deposits. These new interest rates will be offered to the account holders soon after the bank starts its operations.
As per the Chairman C S Ghosh’s statement, Bandhan Bank has fixed the interest rates for term deposits and savings. The interest rates for savings are fixed at 4.25 percent for amounts below Rs 1 lakh and five percent for amounts above Rs 1 lakh. On the other hand, the maximum interest rate for term deposits is 8.5 percent for a period of one to three years, and the senior citizens will receive an additional interest of 0.25 percent.
Ghosh added that the Bandhan Bank has already debuted with the distribution of account opening forms from the 600 odd branches. These branches of the lender will start with the full fledged banking operations from August 23, 2015. The Kolkata based lender will hire around 20 people from different lending institutions and organizations. These professionals will look after the day to day operations of the bank.
As mentioned above, Bandhan Bank will start with 600 branches. Of these, 200 branches will be located in the metropolitan cities and urban areas. The other 400 branches will be in the rural and sub-urban areas. From the day of its commencement, the bank will have 250 ATMs and 12,000 handheld point of sales devices.
The Union Finance Minister of India, Arun Jaitley will inaugurate the Bandhan Bank on its commencement date. Also, the deputy governor of RBI, H R Khan will be present during the inauguration.
Earlier, Bandhan was a MFI (Micro-Finance Institution). It received the in-principle approval from the RBI in April 2014 permitting it to start universal banking operations. As per the RBI requirements, Bandhan will merge the MFI business with its bank. However, the micro-loan activities will go on through the already existing 2,022 service outlets.