The story
Founded by Chandra Shekhar Ghosh in 2001.1
Bandhan was set up in 2001 as a not-for-profit entity with the objective of financial inclusion and women empowerment. It started its microfinance operations from Bagnan, a small village, about 60 km from Kolkata. The model followed for delivery of microfinance services was individual lending through group formation. Bandhan focused on serving underbanked and underpenetrated markets.
In 2006, Bandhan acquired a Non-Banking Financial Company (NBFC) and created Bandhan Financial Services Private Limited (BFSPL) to scale up its microfinance activities. In 2010, it became the largest microfinance institution (MFI) in the country.
In April 2014, Bandhan received an in-principle approval from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for a bank license. On 17 June 2015, RBI granted the banking licence to Bandhan, making it the first microfinance institution to become a universal bank in India.
Bandhan Bank commenced operations on 23 August 2015. The then Union Finance Minister, Arun Jaitley, inaugurated the Bank in Kolkata. Its public shareholders then included International Finance Corporation; Caladium Investment Pte Ltd (the sovereign wealth fund of Singapore, an arm of GIC); and Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI).
In September 2018, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) barred Bandhan Bank from opening new branches without prior approval and froze the salary of its MD & CEO, Chandra Shekar Ghosh, after the bank failed to reduce its promoter shareholding to the mandated 40% within three years of starting operations.
In 2019, Bandhan Bank merged GRUH Finance into its operations, expanding into affordable housing finance and helping lower promoter shareholding to meet RBI ownership regulations.
From Wikipedia’s article on Bandhan Bank, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5