Bharatiya Mahila Bank (BMB; ) was a fully owned

subsidiary A subsidiary, subsidiary company or daughter company is a company owned or controlled by another company, which is called the parent company or holding company. Two or more subsidiaries that either belong to the same parent company or having a ...

State Bank of India State Bank of India (SBI) is an Indian multinational public sector bank and financial services statutory body headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra. SBI is the 49th largest bank in the world by total assets and ranked 221st in the '' Fort ...

based in

Mumbai, India Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second-m ...

. Former Indian Prime Minister

Manmohan Singh Manmohan Singh (; born 26 September 1932) is an Indian politician, economist and statesman who served as the 13th prime minister of India from 2004 to 2014. He is also the third longest-serving prime minister after Jawaharlal Nehru and Indir ...

inaugurated the system on 19 November 2013 on the occasion of the 96th birth anniversary of former Indian Prime Minister

Indira Gandhi Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi (; ''née'' Nehru; 19 November 1917 – 31 October 1984) was an Indian politician and a central figure of the Indian National Congress. She was elected as third prime minister of India in 1966 and was al ...

. As part of the Modi government's banking reforms and to ensure greater banking outreach to women, the bank merged with

on 1 April 2017. While being run by women, and lending exclusively to women, the bank allowed deposits to flow from everyone. India was the third country, after

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...

and

Tanzania Tanzania (; ), officially the United Republic of Tanzania ( sw, Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania), is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It borders Uganda to the north; Kenya to the northeast; Comoro Islands ...

, to have a bank exclusively to benefit women.

Banking for women

In India, only 26% of women have an account with a formal financial institution, compared with 46% of men. This has changed after the initiation of Pradhan Manthri Jan Dhan Yojana – accounts of women jumped radically to 60%. That means an account in either a bank, a credit union, a co-operative, post office or a

microfinance Microfinance is a category of financial services targeting individuals and small businesses who lack access to conventional banking and related services. Microfinance includes microcredit, the provision of small loans to poor clients; savings ...

institution, according to a study by the

World Bank The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and grants to the governments of low- and middle-income countries for the purpose of pursuing capital projects. The World Bank is the collective name for the Inte ...

. Also, for women, per capita credit is 80 per cent lower than males. Furthermore, the results of a study using a global dataset covering 350

Microfinance Microfinance is a category of financial services targeting individuals and small businesses who lack access to conventional banking and related services. Microfinance includes microcredit, the provision of small loans to poor clients; savings ...

Institutions (MFIs) in 70 countries indicates that more women clients is associated with lower portfolio-at-risk, lower write-offs, and lower credit-loss provisions,

ceteris paribus ' (also spelled '; () is a Latin phrase, meaning "other things equal"; some other English translations of the phrase are "all other things being equal", "other things held constant", "all else unchanged", and "all else being equal". A statement ...

. provision

Objective

The bank placed an emphasis on funding for skills developments to help in economic activity. Moreover, the products were designed in a manner to give a slight concession on loan rates to women. The bank also aimed to inspire people with entrepreneurial skills and, in conjunction with

NGO A non-governmental organization (NGO) or non-governmental organisation (see spelling differences) is an organization that generally is formed independent from government. They are typically nonprofit entities, and many of them are active in h ...

s, planned to locally mobilise women to train them in vocations like toy-making or driving tractors or mobile repairs, according to

Usha Ananthasubramanian Usha Ananthasubramanian is the former managing director and chief executive officer of the Allahabad Bank, Education and early career Ananthasubramanian holds a master's degree in statistics from the University of Madras and a master's degree ...

(CMD). One of the other objectives of the bank was to promote asset ownership amongst women customers. Studies have shown that asset ownership amongst women reduces their risk of suffering from domestic violence.

Capital

The Bank's initial capital consisted of Rs 1,000 crores. The government planned to have 25 branches of the said bank by the end of March 2014 and 500 branches by 4th year of operation (2017). As on date of merger it had 103 Branches. US-based FIS Global, in partnership with Wipro was providing IT systems at the country's first women-focussed bank.

Branches

The bank had 103 branches and was planning to open more than 700 branches within next two years. Bharatiya Mahila Bank's branches were located in Mumbai-Nariman Point, Central Mumbai-Ghatkopar, Thane, Pune, Patna, Noida, Chandigarh, Bhubaneshwar, Panchkula, Kochi, Vadodara, Ahmedabad, Indore, Bhopal, New Delhi-Nehru Palace, New Delhi-Model Town, Chandigarh, Gurgaon, Patna, Ranchi, Raipur, Guwahati, Shimla, Shillong, Gangtok, Thiruvananthapuram, Chennai, Coimbatore, Madurai, Bengaluru, Mangalore, Hyderabad, Visakhapatnam, Jaipur, Alwar, Dholpur, Komargiri, Kakinada, Goa-Panji, Agartala, Agra, Haridwar, Kanpur, Lucknow, Dehradun, Doddapalya, Kutiyatu, Murshidabad and Mysuru. The merger of this bank with SBI would mean 103 branches and business of Rs. 1,600 crores added to SBI.

Key management

Bharatiya Mahila Bank was wholly owned by Government of India. Initially the bank had a board of directors consisting of eight women. Mrs. Usha Ananthasubramanian was the chairman and managing director and SM Swathi was executive director. The board consisted of a business graduate

sarpanch A sarpanch ( IAST: ''Sarpañch'' Hindi: ''सरपंच'') or Gram Pradhan or Mukhiya is a decision-maker, elected by the village-level constitutional body of local self-government called the Gram Sabha (village government) in India. The Sarp ...

from

Rajasthan Rajasthan (; lit. 'Land of Kings') is a state in northern India. It covers or 10.4 per cent of India's total geographical area. It is the largest Indian state by area and the seventh largest by population. It is on India's northwestern ...

Chhavi Rajawat Chhavi Rajawat was the Sarpanch of her village Soda, from Jaipur. Though holding an elected post, Chhavi is not affiliated to any political party. The Panchayats are officially supposed to be non-partisan and Panchayat elected representative ...

Dalit Dalit (from sa, दलित, dalita meaning "broken/scattered"), also previously known as untouchable, is the lowest stratum of the castes in India. Dalits were excluded from the four-fold varna system of Hinduism and were seen as forming ...

entrepreneur

Kalpana Saroj Kalpana Saroj is an Indian entrepreneur and a Tedx speaker. She is the Chairperson of Kamani Tubes in Mumbai, India. Described as the original " Slumdog Millionaire", she bought the distressed assets of Kamani Tubes Company and successful ...

, who turned around a tubes business, retired public banker Nupur Mitra, academic Pakiza Samad, private equity professional Renuka Ramnath,

Godrej Group Godrej Group is an Indian multinational conglomerate headquartered in Mumbai, which is managed and largely owned by the Godrej family. It was founded by Ardeshir Godrej and Pirojsha Burjorji Godrej in 1897, and operates in sectors includin ...

executive Director Tanya Dubash and a government nominee. Details can be seen on the bank's website www.bmb.co.in. One of the key objective of the Bank was focus on the banking needs of women and promote economic empowerment through women's growth and developments. The largest branch by way of volume of business, Mumbai Branch situated in the iconic Air India Building was headed by A.J. Gogoi, Chief Manager, deputed from United Bank of India

Criticism

The bank has been criticised as adopting a segregationist approach to gender equality. Uma Shashikant of ''

The Hindu ''The Hindu'' is an Indian English-language daily newspaper owned by The Hindu Group, headquartered in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. It began as a weekly in 1878 and became a daily in 1889. It is one of the Indian newspapers of record and the sec ...

'' writes:

References

{{SBI Companies based in New Delhi Women's organisations based in India Banks established in 2013 Indian companies established in 2013 Banks disestablished in 2017 Indian companies disestablished in 2017 Defunct banks of India State Bank of India 2013 establishments in Delhi