Ujjivan Small Finance Bank to hire 4.8K personnel in FY24

Ujjivan Small Finance Bank (USFB) is looking to hire 4,800 people in the current financial year, as it looks to increase its presence in newer markets, including Andhra Pradesh, and expand its affordable housing loan portfolio.

A bulk of these hirings will come in the southern states, where the company is looking to hire 1,628 personnel, more than a quarter of its total hiring plans for the year, USFB’s managing director and chief executive officer Ittira Davis told DH in an exclusive interaction.

“We are planning to open a number of new branches, mostly in the South. So with each of those branches running between 15 and 20 people, the numbers will take care of themselves. In addition to that we are growing in different businesses, including affordable housing, for which we are setting up 16 asset centres,” Davis said.

The Bengaluru-headquartered bank, which is also expected to seek the Reserve Bank of India’s nod to morph into an universal bank, is looking to increase the share of affordable housing in its portfolio to 20% from the current 15%, in three years.

“It is the second largest business, and the fastest growing. By the end of the year, we hope to make the affordable housing portfolio about Rs 5,000 crore from the current Rs 3,700 crore, Davis said.

The company plans to open a 100 new branches this fiscal, 30% of which will be in the southern states, including 11 in Karnataka. Three of these will be in Andhra Pradesh, where it is entering for the first time. Apart from the southern states, USFB has substantial presence in Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. The Andhra branches will focus on growing the company’s affordable housing and micro, small and medium enterprises segments, Davis said.

In affordable housing, 40% of the company’s portfolio is in rural housing loans, 35% in semi-urban, and
the rest in urban affordable housing loans.

“The bank is witnessing traction for affordable housing segment in smaller cities and towns. We will target tier II & III locations to grow our affordable housing segment with ticket size from 5 lakh to 75 lakh,” he said.

Davis said that the personnel and branch expansion was par for the course as there wasn’t much of it due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and that after the latest round of increase in hirings, “we may slow down a little bit and focus on the digital side.”