Tamil Nadu CM urges Modi to allow cooperative society to resume business

Repco Micro Finance last year submitted a proposal for getting a licence as Small Finance Bank, but the Reserve Bank of India told it only applications for universal banks were being considered

Tamil Nadu on Sunday asked the centre to allow a cooperative society with lakhs of customers in southern India to resume taking deposits and operate as a universal bank, exempting it from a home ministry ban and central bank guidelines.

REPCO Bank was established in 1969 to help rehabilitate repatriates from Sri Lanka and Burma, but suffered a setback in 2014 when the central registrar of cooperative societies amended rules on credit societies taking deposits.

REPCO has a 49.34 per cent share capital from the central government and the remaining from Kerala, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh and repatriates. It has a turnover