In the next six months, HDFC bank plans to hire 2500 employees for expanding its rural reach to two lakh villages.
On Sunday, HDFC bank announces their new plan on expanding their reach towards more rural villages, nearly two lakhs in the upcoming 18-24 months.
HDFC is starting to hire 2500 employees to execute this development plan, and the bank will do all the new hiring within six months.
HDFC Bank currently offers its products and services to MSMEs (Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises) of around 550 districts.
In one lakh villages, they already have rural banking services, and now they are planning to double the rural reach to two lakhs through the new mission. HDFC claims to be the second-largest lender to the MSME sectors in India.
The bank observes its MSME loan book raise by 30 per cent from December 2019 to 2020 and stands at pre-Covid levels, says the statement released in March this year. It is also one of the top banks in the extension of credit under the ECLGS scheme, which stood at around Rs. Twenty-three thousand crores as of December 31, 2020.
The goal of the new mission
Through the new plan of HDFC, they aim to increase the rural outreach to about a third of the country’s villages.
Group Head of Commercial and Rural Banking of HDFC Bank says, “India’s rural and semi-urban markets are under-served in credit extension. They present sustainable long-term growth opportunities for the Indian banking system.”
He added that the bank aims to increase its expansion so that its products and services are available in every pin code of the country, including all the rural villages. The accessibility of HDFC services in every single corner of India is their dream.
As part of the new development mission, the bank will offer traditional and usual services and new services that will efficiently help the rural crowd.
Bank already offers adapted products such as pre-and post-harvest crop loans, two-wheeler and auto loans, loans against gold jewellery, and other loan products in unbanked and under-banked geographies, which helps a lot in rural areas.
They also plan to bring some new schemes and services which focuses on the fast development of rural areas and their economy.
How did HDFC establish this mission?
The HDFC bank plans to execute this massive expansion through a blend of branch networks, business correspondence, business organizers, CSC partners, virtual relationship administration and digital outreach platforms. They mentioned it in a statement released by the bank on Sunday.
HDFC will expand bank services to 5,500 rural branches with the help of government channels like Common Services Centers, which are known for providing digital services in rural areas.
According to Group Head Shukla, this project is lending for 4.5 crore entrepreneurs who are not part of the credits rather than the remaining 1.5 -2 crore entrepreneurs who are already borrowing from banks.
Moreover, this development is impossible without reaching out to the semi-urban and rural areas of India.
“India’s rural and semi-urban markets are under-served in credit extension. They present sustainable long-term growth opportunities for the Indian banking system”, says Shukla.
