HNB keen to acquire SME, Micro – Financing here and abroad
View(s):The Hatton National Bank (HNB) is eyeing opportunities both locally and overseas to acquire Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) and Micro – Financing firms, a top official said.
“We continue to look into businesses that we can acquire and SME and Micro financing are definitely on the radar locally,” Jonathan Alles, Managing Director / CEO HNB told the Business Times on the sidelines of the HNB Investor Forum recently. He said that they are also open for acquisitions in these two sectors overseas. Last year HNB went to Cambodia and supported their micro finance sector (a certain firm) with US $ 50 million.
He said that leasing and finance companies will also remain interesting opportunities locally. “We see opportunity to grow the SME business and it’s growing at the right margins. This was probably a little difficult before because the margins did not commensurate with the risks that we were taking but now it’s an attractive proposition to look into.”
The growth in advances at HNB was propelled by a 30 per cent growth in Corporate Banking, 25 per cent growth in SME, 65 per cent growth in leasing and a 67 per cent growth in personal loans. “As rural and regional credit and as consumer finance flourishes with more disposable income, I see us going back to our old ratios in terms of retail and corporate. We are hoping to grow at least around 25 per cent -30 per cent in the microfinance area this year,” Mr. Alles added noting that the loans to customers grew 26 per cent to Rs. 498 billion with leasing vehicles also picking up sharply from Rs. 24 to 40 billion with strong growth in corporate loans for working capital, projects and dollar denominated loans.
“We hope to grow our loan portfolio by 15 per cent this year and we expect it to be driven by SME and personal banking.”