Centrum, BharatPe get licence to set up Small Finance Bank

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has issued a Small Finance Bank (SFB) licence to the consortium of Centrum Financial Services, the small business lending arm of the Centrum Group, and Resilient Innovations Private Limited (BharatPe), a fintech company. “A new bank license has been issued after a gap of nearly 6 years, and we thank the RBI for the confidence shown in the abilities of Centrum and BharatPe,” Centrum said. The new SFB has been incorporated as ‘Unity Small Finance Bank’, it said.

“Unity as a name has tremendous significance on many counts for both Centrum and BharatPe. It is the first time ever that two partners are uniting equally to build a Bank,” it said in an exchange filing. The proposed business model is one of collaboration and open architecture, it said. Centrum’s MSME and microfinance businesses will be merged into Unity Small Finance Bank.

Jaspal Bindra, executive chairman, Centrum Group, said “We are delighted to receive the license and excited to partner with BharatPe to create this new age bank, with a strong team. We aspire to be India’s first digital bank.” “We will … capture this opportunity and build India’s first truly Digital Bank ground up,” said Ashneer Grover, co-founder and MD, BharatPe.