Bandhan received the banking lincence from the Reserve Bank of India in April.

"We plan to start off with 600-700 branches across the country. Some of them may be either existing ones or new," Bandhan Financial CMD Chandra Sekhar Ghosh said.

He said that 80 per cent of the branches would be in the rural areas and the rest in the urban regions.

Bandhan has 2,016 branches, of which 50 per cent are in West Bengal.

Starting with a capital of Rs 2 lakh in 2001, Bandhan's loan outstanding at the moment stood at Rs 6,200 crore, he said at an interactive session organised by Bharat Chamber of Commerce inn Kolkata on Friday.

He said that Bandhan was the largest MFI with a market share of 25 per cent.

With IFC and SIDBI as investors in the entity, Bandhan plans to start banking operations in 18 months.

Ghosh said that a number of investors were queuing up before Bandhan for making investments.

PTI