Expect loan growth to be at 15% for FY18: Equitas

The Equitas stock has been under pressure off late and there have been major earnings cuts across brokerages.

In an interview to CNBC-TV18, PN Vasudevan, MD & CEO, Equitas Small Finance Bank spoke about the latest happenings in his company and sector.

Post demonetisation there was a stress on microfinance collection in a few states like Uttar Pradesh (UP), Maharashtra, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh (MP), he said.

A large chunk of customers had stopped repayments in these states on the back of loan waiver rumours. That led to the ballooning of the non-performing assets (NPAs), he added.

The industry is coming back to the normalcy position from last three-four months, said Vasudevan.

There is a conscious plan to reduce the weightage of contribution of microfinance to lower figures. So the disbursements in microfinance was lower than previous year, he further mentioned.

Business loans for working capital purpose for small and medium enterprises (SME) and the gold loan and the agricultural loan that we have introduced, the traction has been good, he said.

He expects 15 percent of overall loan growth in current year FY18.

350 branches out of the 412 branches have become fully functional. For 25 branches, the work is in progress and should go on stream by end of this month, Vasudevan further said.

Expenses in Q1 have peaked and are likely to remain steady over the remaining three quarters of the current financial year, he added.

For full interview, watch accompanying video...