Bandhan Bank Ltd. is an Indian banking and financial services company headquartered in Kolkata, West Bengal. Bandhan, which started as a micro-finance company in 2001, received banking licence by Reserve Bank of India in 2014.Bandhan Bank became the 8th largest bank (27 March 2018) in India by market capital (? 56920 Cr). According to the Annual Report of the bank of 2016-17, the Bank has 936 branches, 2,764 DSCs (Doorstep Services) and 460 ATMs and 15,185 Mini-ATMs (Hand-Held Devices).

Management

1. Bandhan Bank has Mr. Harun Rasid Khan as Chairman. He has been the Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank of India in July 2016.
2. Mr. Chandra Shekhar Ghosh is the founder cum managing director and chief executive officer.

Investor

• The RBI licensing norms stipulate that a new bank must have a ? 500 crore capital. Bandhan Bank starts with a capital base of ? 2,570 crore and this will be raised to ? 3,052 crore.
• Bandhan Financial Holdings is owned by Bandhan Financial Services Limited (BFSL), the largest micro finance organization in India.
• The major investors in the parent company of Bandhan Bank are International Finance Corporation (IFC), Singapore Sovereign Wealth Fund GIC, Financial Inclusion Trust, North Eastern Financial Inclusion Trust, Bandhan Employees Welfare Trust and Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI).

Regulatory issues

• The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has directed Bandhan Bank not to open new branches without prior sanction, while also temporarily staying the bank’s CEO remuneration, subject to compliance with RBI directive to reduce promoter entity shareholding.The Bank has claimed its willingness to comply but that the difficulty in reducing stake of promoter Non Operative Financial Holding Company (NOFHC) to 40 percent was attributable to SEBI regulations which prevented the bank from offloading promoter shares in secondary market for one year after listing i.e. in period from 2018 to 2019 (promoter shareholding lock-in).
• Meanwhile, in October 2018 the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has granted the bank promoters exemption from the shareholding lock-in requirement. It is expected that the bank promoters now have a better chance of complying with the aforesaid RBI regulatory requirement, as they will not fall foul of SEBI regulations while diluting promoter shareholding.