The largest private lender in Kerala, Federal Bank, said on Tuesday that it will open 100 new branches in the upcoming fiscal year as part of its increased emphasis on financing to small companies. The Kochi-based lender launched 75 branches in the previous fiscal year, according to Malini Warrier, executive director, who was present at the Sidbi-organized three-day summit on global SME finance. She said that SME loans made up one-third of the company's entire loan book, which at Rs 1,86,593 crore as of June 2023 had increased by about 21% year over year, as well as the retail and wholesale books.

"The idea of focusing on SMEs is that we should be growing in sectors of the economy which is growing faster or which have more credit needs. The fast-growing industry segment in terms of credit is SMEs. Therefore our decision to open more SME-focused branches this fiscal as well," Warrier said. According to her, most of these branches will come up in Tamil Nadu, which it already has 200 branches, besides Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, the states which have the largest concentration of small businesses.

During the past five years, the bank has almost doubled its branch presence to 1,100 from 600, she noted. As part of the SME focus, the bank will be driving the co-lending model too. It has already tied up with a fintech player Yubi and is in discussions with half a dozen more and will likely close co-lending agreements with at least four of them this fiscal.