Founded in 1977, HDFC had net income for 2005 of about $200 million and 24 rural partners. Recent partnerships include: Ujjivan, Bellwether microfinance fund, Avishkar-Goodwell Fund, Lok Capital, and Activists for Social Alternatives.
Another example of a commercial bank that has partnered with local MFIs is ICICI, which has 72 such partnerships. ICICI Bank had net income in 2005 of about $500 million, and operates 614 branches and 2200 ATMs. Through about 100 rural partnerships, its portfolio of microfinance investments stood at $227 million and 1.2 million clients at year end 2005. A prominent partner of the bank is Spandana. The Andhra-Pradesh-based microfinance institution disbursed loans of $3.4 million in 2004 at an effective rate of 30%, of which 9.25% went to ICICI. In addition, in November 2005, ICICI tied up with the Grameen Foundation USA to create microfinance lender Grameen Capital India. ICICI has been micro lending since 2001.
Mumbai-based UTI began in 1994, and is 72% publicly-owned. It had net income in 2005 of $104 million, and operates 450 branches and more than a thousand ATMs throughout India. In its Annual Report 2005-2006, reference is made to increasing microfinance activities by offering new services to rural clients. UTI works closely with the Grameen Koota program, which has outstanding loans of $3.2 million, as well as SKS Microfinance of India.
Additional Resources:
1) HDFC Bank: Financials
2) HDFC Bank: Social Initiatives
3) UTI Bank: Annual Report 2005-2006 (PDF file)
4) Yahoo! Finance: “India's Banks Are Big on Microfinance”
5) UN Capital Development Fund: Newsletter featuring ICICI
6) ICICI Bank: Overview
7) Rediff Business News: “Lessons from microfinance” (focus on India)
8) The Economic Times: “Microfinance creates flutter among VCs”
9) Consultative Group to Assist the Poor: Bank Profiles
10) Grameen Koota: Snapshot
11) Microfinance Gateway: ICICI Bank in Microfinance
12) Grameen Foundation USA: Programs
13) SKS Microfinance: Partners
