We continue to increase banking access for our informal sector customers, helping improve their lives and livelihoods, and furthering India’s financial inclusion priorities. Currently we service our customers with specially designed products that answer their financial security, liquidity, and ease-of-banking needs.
FY 2021-22 at a Glance
Gross Loan Book (OSP)
New Customers Onboarded
Disbursements (y-o-y increase 65%)
Deposit Base (43% y-o-y growth)
Our strategy towards providing full range of banking services with digital technologies, combined with our strong foundation of lending business, is unlocking immense business opportunities. Our field staff productivities are one of the best in industry; we are at the forefront of digital adoption, and our deposit base among the segment is expanding rapidly, creating value across our ecosystem.
Digitalisation is the gamechanging accelerator for microbanking, as interoperable technology greatly enhances overall reach, adoption and transaction flows. Close to 21% customer base repays through cashless mode, which is the best in industry.
This year has seen an increase in digital-driven products and services. We launched an industry first, real-time mobile number update via hand-held device, riding on the UIDAI infrastructure. Our Ujjivan Pay QR Code, a UPI-based Payment Acceptance Solution helped to digitise the income of our customers. Our Money Mitra network handled money flows worth ₹12 Crores for 1.5 Lakhs of customers, while UPI and mobile banking touchpoints handled almost 10 Lakhs customers.
We helped our customers tide over subdued demand conditions, extending their loan moratoriums and meeting their stretched working capital needs, thereby reducing financial distress.
New Digital Initiatives
Ujjivan Pay QR code:
Expanding reach through digital means, remains our topmost priority. To realise the RBI’s financial inclusion mandate for the banking sector, tapping into a robust payment acceptance infrastructure is necessary. Facilitation in the form of geotagging and QR codes is an aspect of this requirement, and helps both, providers and customers, to scale up and increase usage.
Ujjivan SFB’s own QR Code was launched in February 2022, to enable our merchants to accept payments from their customers in an easy and secure way. The monthly average balance maintained by our QR code customer in 3.5X more than our CASA customer. Our goal is to expand Ujjivan Pay QR Code facility for merchants, and bring in additional features to the existing product to cater to customer needs and demands.
Trucell App Deposit launched:
The True Cell app is designed as a 360-degree mobile-based solution for our loan servicing field staff in rural areas. It works as a seamless, analytics-driven system for repayment collection with real time monitoring of the loan portfolio and geotagging, leading to highly efficient cash management. The app was launched in March 2022.
Mobile Number Update:
As a continuation of its rapid digitalisation moves, the Bank launched the industry-first facility of enabling customers to update their mobile number via the digital channel. This is on-field mobile number updating process that is realtime, paperless, and secured with bio-metric authentication. Customers can update their mobile number once every six months through the platform. The move further enhances banking-on-the-go and demonstrates the empathy we bring into customer service.
Highlights of FY 2021-22
Credit is among the key financial requirements for our segment and our continuous efforts remain on providing loans to support liquidity requirements of our customers.
In FY 2020-21, disbursements have been worth ₹6,482 Crores, while the total disbursement pie has now reached ₹10,668 Crores. The term deposit book size too, increased by ₹205Crores in this fiscal. The highest ever group loan disbursement in a single month was achieved in January 2022, for ₹1,380 Crores. This also includes the highest top-up loan disbursement of ₹262 Crores. 40% of our GL disbursements were towards PSL Agri.
Our continued focus on the Sampoorna Family Banking portfolio of products, covering group loans, individual loans, savings/deposit products, twowheeler loans, insurance, and payment solutions, have led to significant cross sell gains.
We have also been able to extend our products and services to the family members of our customers. In a year, we have acquired 2.34 Lakhs of family banking accounts, marking a y-o-y increase of >70%.
The Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme (ECLGS), a GoI-supported COVID-crisis management initiative, was continued this year, too. Our ECLGS business customers had a total of 74,042 loans sanctioned, worth `67.37 Crores.
Geotagging of loan repayment locations that are in the immediate neighbourhood of the borrower, is done at the time of loan processing. This makes banking more convenient for the segment and fosters financial inclusion.
Our key focus areas would be Deposit mobilisation, scaling up agriculture loans in North and East, enhancing secured product bouquet with cluster specific and segment specific offerings with capacity building of Rural Branches for product distribution and servicing."
Murali Chari
Business Head Rural Banking
Increasing financial inclusion was achieved through steady proliferation of multiple digital channels. Cash management, loan servicing and repayment, and customer onboarding, saw considerable traction via online channels, with total coverage of Airtel Payments Bank (APB), PayNearby (PNB) and Spice Money reaching 10,000 outlets. 55.2% EMI repayment moved out of branches, of which, 35.8% of our collections have been through APB, PNB and Spice Money, while 19.4% have been through customer-induced cashless mode.
We retain our strong focus on building a sustainable portfolio that fuels business growth. To augment our asset business, we will be prioritising on repeat customers and on gradually increasing new customer acquisition. Migrating eligible customers from group loans to individual loans is another priority. In terms of enhancing process efficiencies, our customer-centric digitisation is helping to drive better penetration, grow new channels and making banking access possible at a finger tap."
Vibhas Chandra
Business Head, Microbanking
Rural Banking
This year, the focus has been on portfolio diversification and boosting product mix. This will help the Bank widen its customer base and meet a variety of emerging customer needs. Some of the new product variants that have been launched are under the umbrella of flagship product Kisan Pragati Card, and aim at giving more credit options to the rural consumer.
During the year, secured loan portfolio has increased to ₹16.57 Crores, witnessing y-o-y growth of 122%. Liability book has reached ₹211 Crores during the year, indicating y-o-y growth of 130%.
Secured Loan Portfolio
Increment by 122% y-o-y
Outlook
The Bank will be stringently integrating the RBI’s master direction on the Regulatory Framework for Microfinance Loans within its evaluation, oversight and reporting mechanisms. Our focus will be on individual lending with increase in our product basket, mainly semi-secured and secured products. There will be further enhancement in digital services and technology-driven processes, empowering customers for digital self-service.
Expanding and fortifying our digital infrastructure to ensure the provision of safe, swift and easy banking, will involve several actions. We are increasing our BC partnerships, so that multimodal reach to rural communities is possible. We are prioritising the expansion of Ujjivan Pay QR, to digitise income of merchants, and to bring in additional features to the existing product, further catering to customer needs and demands.
The Money Mitra network is being expanded to bring banking to village neighbourhoods,
Rural Customers
and other services like account opening and RD sourcing would also be covered. AEPS (Aadhar enabled Payment System) ONUS enablement is also underway, and would help to facilitate easier deposits and withdrawals.
Another exciting feature to be launched is the ‘Hello Ujjivan’ application, which is a mobile banking application facility that is based on the ‘triple V mantra’ of voice, visual and vernacular, and will be particularly useful for micro banking customers. The app will also service loan disbursements.
To ensure enhanced security for the loan granting and servicing process, the Glow Single Flow Process is being enabled so that the full details of the customers and the loan taken are captured in one workflow. As a cumulative result of all these customerfriendly activities, ease-of-banking and a more holistic visibility into internal systems, are achieved.
This, in turn, adds to faster scalability of services, helping us to deepen our market presence in unbanked geographies.
