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Bandhan Bank open for inorganic opportunities, to evaluate new businesses
Kolkata, Oct 1 (IANS) Bandhan Bank on Monday said the lender is “open to explore inorganic opportunities” and “will evaluate” getting into new businesses such as insurance and mutual fund going forward under its holding company, which will help to dilute shareholding of the Non Operative Financial Holding Company (NOFHC) into the bank.
Reserve Bank of India (RBI) recently withdrew general permission to open bank’s new branches and froze the remuneration of the lender’s MD and CEO Chandra Shekhar Ghosh till further notice as the bank was not able to bring down the shareholding of NOFHC, Bandhan Financial Holdings Limited (BFHL), to 40 per cent, as required under the licensing condition.
According to RBI’s new banking licensing norms, any bank offering ‘universal’ services will have to bring down the promoter holding to 40 per cent in three years from the date of commencement of business.
The bank had completed three years of operations this August. The promoter holding in the bank currently stands at around 82 per cent after a successful Initial Public Offer (IPO), launched in March this year.
“As you are aware that we have come out with an IPO in March of 2018, whereby all existing shareholders, including BFHL are under lock-in for a period of one year till March 2019 as per SEBI regulations. So, till the time we are in lock-in, there cannot be any secondary sale by the promoter,” the lender said in a regulatory filing on Monday, referring to a conference call held on Saturday.
“And post this lock-in the shares will be available to freely trade. NOFHC, which is the holding company of the bank, as per the licensing conditions, after the three years of starting of the business, can get into other financial services business other than banking like insurance and mutual fund. So that option is available to us now that three years is over, and we will evaluate getting into these new businesses going forward which will help us dilute our shareholding of NOFHC into the bank,” said lender’s CFO Sunil Samdani during the call.
Further, in line with its strategy to grow business, which is microfinance, MSME and affordable housing, the lender will continue to grow its business organically, he said.
“We are open, however, if it makes sense and is in line with our strategy of MSME, micro and affordable housing to explore inorganic opportunities as well. So, a combination of this will help us reduce our shareholding,” Samdani said.
He said if it has to do any para-banking activities it “has to be housed under the NOFHC and not under the bank”.
As of June 2018 we already have 937 branches and the lender was pursuing a strategy to take this to 1,000.
–IANS
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International online casino Casino Days has published a report sharing their internal data on what types and brands of devices are used to play on the platform by users from the South Asian region.
Such aggregate data analyses allow the operator to optimise their website for the brands and models of devices people are actually using.
The insights gained through the research also help Casino Days tailor their services based on the better understanding of their clients and their needs.
Desktops and Tablets Lose the Battle vs Mobile
The primary data samples analysed by Casino Days reveal that mobile connections dominate the market in South Asia and are responsible for a whopping 96.6% of gaming sessions, while computers and tablets have negligible shares of 2.9% and 0.5% respectively.
The authors of the study point out that historically, playing online casino was exclusively done on computers, and attribute thе major shift to mobile that has unfolded over time to the wide spread of cheaper smartphones and mobile data plans in South Asia.
“Some of the reasons behind this massive difference in device type are affordability, technical advantages, as well as cheaper and more obtainable internet plans for mobiles than those for computers,” the researchers comment.
Xiaomi and Vivo Outperform Samsung, Apple Way Down in Rankings
Chinese brands Xiaomi and Vivo were used by 21.9% and 20.79% of Casino Days players from South Asia respectively, and together with the positioned in third place with a 18.1% share South Korean brand Samsung dominate the market among real money gamers in the region.
Cupertino, California-based Apple is way down in seventh with a user share of just 2.29%, overshadowed by Chinese brands Realme (11.43%), OPPO (11.23%), and OnePlus (4.07%).
Huawei is at the very bottom of the chart with a tiny share just below the single percent mark, trailing behind mobile devices by Motorola, Google, and Infinix.
The data on actual phone usage provided by Casino Days, even though limited to the gaming parts of the population of South Asia, paints a different picture from global statistics on smartphone shipments by vendors.
Apple and Samsung have been sharing the worldwide lead for over a decade, while current regional leader Xiaomi secured their third position globally just a couple of years ago.
Striking Android Dominance among South Asian Real Money Gaming Communities
The shifted market share patterns of the world’s top smartphone brands in South Asia observed by the Casino Days research paper reveal a striking dominance of Android devices at the expense of iOS-powered phones.
On the global level, Android enjoys a comfortable lead with a sizable 68.79% share which grows to nearly 79% when we look at the whole continent of Asia. The data on South Asian real money gaming communities suggests that Android’s dominance grows even higher and is north of the 90% mark.
Among the major factors behind these figures, the authors of the study point to the relative affordability of and greater availability of Android devices in the region, especially when manufactured locally in countries like India and Vietnam.
“And, with influencers and tech reviews putting emphasis on Android devices, the choice of mobile phone brand and OS becomes easy; Android has a much wider range of products and caters to the Asian online casino market in ways that Apple can’t due to technical limitations,” the researchers add.
The far better integration achieved by Google Pay compared to its counterpart Apple Pay has also played a crucial role in shaping the existing smartphone market trends.
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