This strategy has paid huge dividends and confidence has slowly come back to the sector. Over the years, concentration of bank branches in metropolitan areas became a concern.
To mitigate this problem, since 2006, the Reserve Bank approves opening of new branches for any bank only on the condition that at least half of such new branches are opened in underbanked areas as notified by it. Banks too have found that the branches in semi-urban and rural areas are commercially viable.