Kolkata June 20 (IANS) L&T Finance a subsidiary of L&T Finance Holdings is focusing on venturing into "new geographies" to propel growth in its micro loans book an official said on Wednesday.
As on March 31 the micro loans book of the company stood at Rs 7 549 crore with a customer base of about 38.2 lakh women across 57 500 villages.
"Our growth was fuelled by our willingness to venture out and serve hitherto unbanked customers rather than lending within the same geography " L&T Finance Holdings Chief Executive - Rural Finance and Chief Human Resources Officer Sunil Prabhune said.
"Last year we ventured into Assam Tripura and Bihar and this year we added Jharkhand. A substantial share of business that we booked last year came out of branches that were opened in last year itself."
There are certain geographies where the company would like to expand its existing base he said adding more than 30 per cent of the total disbursements of Rs 7 214 crore in FY18 was added by the new meeting centres (or micro finance branch) launched during that period.
The company announced the opening of its 1000th meeting centre here for its micro loans business and opened 14 new meeting centres in West Bengal in the last two months taking the number to 126 in the state.
The company on Wednesday rolled out an instant loan sanctioning app across 14 states where it has operations.

--IANS bdc/him/