National Federation of Urban Cooperative Banks and Credit Societies (NAFCUB) held its 44th Annual General Meeting in New Delhi recently and delegates from across the country participated in it. Jyotindra Mehta, President, NAFCUB, presided over the meeting. Mehta told the participants the biggest achievement of NAFCUB was the approval from RBI to NAFCUB to promote a National Level Umbrella Organization (UO) for UCBs. The UO has been registered as National Cooperative Financial and Development Corporation, with its registered office being in Delhi., he said, adding the UO is in the process of preparing an application to RBI for getting an NBFC licence, as the approval letter from RBI had mentioned that the UO will operate as an NBFC with a subscribed share capital of Rs3 billion. The UO is envisaged to be managed entirely by professionals and will have 50 percent of independent directors, who will be persons of eminence in the fields of finance, management and technology, Mehta said. Another milestone for NAFCUB is that cooperative banks achieved parity with corporate income tax rates, an anomalous position. He also added that NAFCUB made concerted efforts in correspondence with the Government of India in ensuring the inclusion of urban cooperative banks under various schemes of support to banks in the financing of MSMEs and in the MUDRA scheme. The Ministry of MSME has done its part by announcing the inclusion of all UCBs under certain schemes.
