Bandhan ropes in Ogilvy & Mather for building banking image

Bandhan Financial Services has roped in Ogilvy & Mather for a major brand-building exercise as the micro-finance major is set to operate as a full-fledged bank from next year.

The MFI major said the brand-building exercise is essential for it to inform people about Bandhan?s foray into banking operations. ?We were talking to a few global majors for our requirements as currently we are drawing up plans to transform our micro-finance operations into mainstream banking. Ogilvy will create a logo and advertising strategies; it will also look after the interiors of bank branches,? Bandhan chairman and managing director Chandra Shekhar Ghosh said. He said the brand building was a part of Bandhan?s programme to make its existing and new customers aware of the services it would provide to them as a bank.

Ad-guru Piyush Pandey is Ogilvy & Mather?s executive chairman and creative director for India and South Asia. He was in the team of admen who had crafted the effective Lok Sabha campaign of the BJP.

The Kolkata-based MFI was one of the two players picked by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to award new banking licences.

The company earlier said it would simultaneously open close to 600 bank branches in urban and rural India, and is expecting to open at least 10 million accounts in one go when it starts banking operations.

Bhaskar Sen, former chairman and MD of United Bank of India, said Bandhan?s exercise would help it establish its identity in the banking business. ?As an MFI, Bandhan operates in rural and semi-urban areas. But now as a bank it will have a pan-India presence. So, there is a need to inform people about its new business model,? he said.

According to Sachin Bhosle, research head of Trust Research Advisory (TRA), Bandhan would leverage its existing brand to gain wide acceptance from its existing as well as new customers when it will launch full-fledged banking operations.

?Securing a banking licence showed that Bandhan brand is already well accepted by its stakeholders and customers in the micro-finance business. Now, it carries a residual trust and there is a greater possibility that the brand will also be well accepted by stakeholders and existing customers when it forays into banking, which is a different category of business,? Bhosle pointed out.

He said ?relevant competence? was one of the core areas for the foundation of trust for any brand and going forward Bandhan had to demonstrate it also in banking operation.