RBL Bank


RBL Bank, formerly known as Ratnakar Bank, is an Indian private sector bank headquartered in Mumbai and founded in 1943. It offers services across six verticals: corporate and institutional banking, commercial banking, branch and business banking, retail assets, development banking and financial inclusion, treasury and financial market operations.

History

In August 1943, Ratnakar Bank was founded as a regional bank in Maharashtra with two branches in Kolhapur and Sangli. It mainly served small and medium enterprises and business merchants in the Kolhapur-Sangli belt. It was incorporated in Kolhapur district on 14 June 1943 as Ratnakar Bank Limited. In 1959, the bank was categorized as a scheduled commercial bank as per the Reserve Bank of India Act, 1934. During this decade, it was referred to as an NH4 Bank. In 1970, it received a banking license from the Reserve Bank of India.
In July 2010, Vishwavir Ahuja became managing director and CEO of the bank. In August 2014 the name of the bank was changed to RBL Bank Limited.

Operations

As of December 2019, it has a network of 372 branches and 394 ATMs across 28 states and union territories. It has 5,843 employees.
In 2016, the bank ran a financial literacy programme called Saksham in collaboration with CDC to provide education to 25,000 individuals and 300 villages in four districts of Madhya Pradesh. Another Saksham programme was run in Ahmedabad in 2013.
In 2018, RBL Bank partnered with MoneyTap to launch India's first personal credit line based app. The same year in June, the company announced that it had raised its stake in microlender Swadhaar FinServe to 100 per cent.

Funding

RBL Bank has raised funding from investors such as CDC Group, Multiples Alternate Asset Management, Asian Development Bank, and PremjiInvest among others.
Throughout the 2010s, RBL Bank reportedly raised a total of INR 4,000 crore from investors. It raised INR 700 crore in 2011, INR 376 crore in 2013, INR 328 crore in 2014 and INR 488 crore in 2016. In July 2017, RBL Bank received board approval to raise an additional INR 1680 crore.
In December 2019, the company announced that it had raised INR 675 crore through preferential issue. Investors such as East Bridge Capital Master Fund and WF Asian Reconnaissance Fund participated.

Awards and recognition