 "Muthoot Finance may decide on seeking bank licence soon")
The top company official informed that the decision will soon be taken at a meeting of the board of directors of the company next month.
"We are moving closer to apply for a bank license. Muthoot is positive after the RBI's new guidelines for new bank licenses. We will put the matter to the board of directors at their next meeting. They will take a final decision on the same," said George Alexander Muthoot, MD, Muthoot Finance.
Last month, the RBI had issued guidelines for non-banking financial companies and broking houses for taking banking license.
However, under the said guidelines, NBFCs can become a bank if all the activities undertaken by them are allowed to be undertaken by a bank departmentally.
Further, these NBFCs can still seek a banking license given that they divest those activities which banks are not allowed to undertake.
Muthoot has set ambitious plan to become a full-fledged bank since the gold-loan business appears to be on a consolidation.
"There seems to be a kind of a consolidation happening in the gold loan business. The growth is there but the pace of growth will be around 5-10 per cent or almost flat," said Muthoot.
The company has close to 4,000 branches with 60 per cent of them being in the southern market.
Muthoot has over 6 million credit accounts with a total outstanding gold loan worth Rs 25,388 crore as on December 31, 2012.