Centrum soars 19% as RBI grants SFB license to consortium with BharatPe

The RBI has issued a Small Finance Bank license to the Centrum Group-BharatPe consortium; new SFB has been incorporated as 'Unity Small Finance Bank'

Shares of Centrum Capital soared 19 per cent to Rs 47.65 on the BSE in Wednesday’s intra-day trade after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) issued a Small Finance Bank (SFB) license to the Centrum Group-BharatPe consortium. Incorporated as Unity SFB, the lender will start operations in some weeks with a Rs 1,500-crore loan book.

“The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has today issued a Small Finance Bank (SFB) license to the consortium of Centrum Financial Services (Centrum), the established and profitable small business lending arm of the Centrum Group and Resilient Innovations Private Limited (BharatPe), one of India's fastest-growing fintech companies,” Centrum and BharatPe said in a joint press release on Tuesday after market hours.

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, it added.

The new SFB has been incorporated as ‘Unity Small Finance Bank’. "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. The proposed business model is one of collaboration and open architecture, uniting all its stakeholders to deliver a seamless digital experience. Centrum’s successful MSME and Micro Finance businesses shall be merged into Unity Small Finance Bank," the company said.

At 09:48 am, the stock of Centrum Capital was up 16 per cent at Rs 46.30 on the BSE, as compared to a 0.44 per cent rise in the S&P BSE Sensex. The trading volumes on the counter nearly doubled, with a combined 40.1 million equity shares having changed hands on the NSE and BSE so far.