The total number of Non-Banking Financial Companies (NBFCs) registered with Reserve Bank of India (RBI) declined to 12,809 in June 2008, latest figure which is available, from 12,968 a year ago. The decline was mainly due to the exit of many NBFCs from deposit-taking activity.
According to a report which was released by Icra Management Consulting Services on NBFCs said that NBFCs, including NBFCs-D (NBFCs accepting deposits), Residuary NBFC (RNBCs), mutual benefit companies (MBCs), miscellaneous non-banking companies (MNBCs) and Nidhi companies, declined to 12,809 as on June 2008 from 12,968 in June 2007 and 13,014 in June 2006.
Total number of NBCs-D registered with the RBI dropped to 364 from 401 last year.
The consulting firm attributed the drop mainly due to exit of many NBFCs from deposit-taking activity. All NBFCs holding PDs whose CoRs have been either rejected or cancelled have to continue repaying deposits on due dates and dispose off their financial assets within three years from the date of application/cancellation of the certificate or convert themselves into non-banking and non-financial companies.
In recent years, there has been a fall in number of operating NBFCs reflecting mergers, closure and cancellation licences.
At the end of FY08, just two RNBCs accounted for 25.8 per cent of the total assets and 91.6 per cent of PDs of all NBFCs. Excluding RNBCs, the asset size of NBFCs significantly rose from less than Rs 2.5 million to over Rs 5 billion, said the report.
While 54 per cent of the NBFCs have assets less than Rs 20 million, 80 per cent have assets less than Rs 100 million.
The number of NBFCs with assets less than Rs 100 million have declined to 265 at the end of FY2008 from 840 at the end of financial year 2000.