UAE Exchange Mulls Setting Up A Universal Bank

Hyderabad: After having failed to get a small finance bank licence, leading financial services firm, UAE Exchange India, is now mulling to approach the RBI for licence to set up a universal bank once its loan portfolio crosses Rs 1,000 crore-mark, its top executive said.

"We earlier applied for a small bank. But we did not get it. We want to apply now again after crossing Rs 1,000 crore loan portfolio. Maybe, by the end of 2017-18 we expect it to cross Rs 1,000 crore. Then, we will apply for licence for universal bank (on tap). We can apply today also. But we do not want to be in a hurry," V George Antony, Managing Director of UAE Exchange India told PTI.

"We want to create a success story before applying for licence, so that it does not get rejected," he added.

UAE Exchange, one of the largest money transfer companies in the world started facing headwinds after the RBI relaxed banking norms about six years facilitating anywhere banking for banks.

The move hugely affected the money transfer business as most of the Non-Resident Indians started shifting to banks for remittances.

"Money transfer is a dying product for us. In 2010, it used to constitute around 85 per cent of our total business. Now, it is de-growing at 35 per cent per annum. It is just 10 per cent now, because people started sending amount directly through banks. On the other hand, Forex and loans portfolio are growing," he explained.

Sensing the trouble with money transfer business, UAE Exchange started diversifying into gold loans, vehicle loans, personal loans and travel about four years back.

"We are only four years old in loan business. Total portfolio is Rs 500 crore. Gold loan vertical will have about Rs 400 crore, while two-wheeler talon is the next big one," he said.

Antony hoped that the revenues of the company is expected to grow at 15 per cane this year and cross Rs 300 crore this year against Rs about 250 crore last year.

Replying to a query, he said demonetisation did not impact their business.

In a bid to encash the present digital economy mantra, UAE Exchange is pushing its product - Xpay cash wallet into the market.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)