Satin Creditcare Network to set up a housing finance subsidiary

KOLKATA: Microfinance company Satin Creditcare Network is planning to set up a housing finance subsidiary to raise its stake among the bottom of the pyramid customers.

Satin announced that its board has approved the formation of wholly-owned subsidiary.

The MFI said said its net profit grew 13% at Rs 17 crore for the December quarter while its gross lending portfolio grew 47% to Rs 3736 crore in the quarter which saw demonetisation taking away the fizz from cash-dependent microfinance business.

"The growth in our portfolio was impacted to some extent due to the challenging environment," said Chairman HP Singh. He said that banks disbursed more than Rs 650 crore to Satin post demonetisation.

"It is a strong testimony to the confidence our lenders have in us," he said.

Satin aims to grow the portfolio to Rs 5500 crore by March 2018. It has begun cashless disbursement of loans to poor borrowers in February.

Its net interest income grew by 33% to Rs 92 crore in the third quarter from Rs 69 crore a year back. Net interest margin fell to 10.4% from 11.8% in the same period.