India's AU Small Finance Bank gets first universal banking licence in a decade

AU Small Finance Bank applied for the licence in September 2024, which would allow it to expand its operations, in terms of issuing bigger loans, taking on more customers and making subsidiaries, all of which are limited for small finance banks. The Reserve Bank of India, also the country's banking regulator, first issued guidelines for small finance banks to transition into full-fledged banks in 2014 and then updated those guidelines with more detailed criteria in April last year. The last such license issued by the RBI was in 2015 to Kolkata-based Bandhan Bank, which was a microfinance firm then.