A success story in public sector

What we usually hear from public sector companies are stories of struggles and losses. But breaking that trend, Kerala’s public sector institution KSFE (Kerala State Financial Enterprises) has presented an impressive success story. Achieving a business target of Rs 1 lakh crore in a year, KSFE has reached the top among non-banking financial institutions in India, a milestone worth celebrating. This success is mainly due to its chit fund schemes and deposit services similar to retail banking. KSFE has achieved this exceptional growth with trust and transparency at a time when many private chitty companies are in the news for scams and fraud—taking people’s money and vanishing.

By using modern technology, KSFE has matched big banks in offering better services to its customers. Mobile app facilities, their own IFS (Indian Financial System) code for electronic money transfers, as well as schemes like Pravasi (expatriate) chitty, division chitty, government-guaranteed deposits, and low-interest loans have all boosted business growth. In the last financial year alone, new chitty schemes worth Rs 1,000 crore were started, and loans crossed Rs 10,000 crore in the early part of the current year — taking total business to Rs 1 lakh crore. Over the past four and a half years, the business has doubled. Finance Minister K. N. Balagopal, KSFE Chairman K. Varadarajan, Managing Director Dr. S. K. Sanil, and the entire staff deserve praise for steering this achievement.

The success was the result of teamwork involving employees, agents, business promoters, and appraisers. In recent years, KSFE has also created jobs for nearly 3,000 people- another remarkable accomplishment.

In a market flooded with short-lived, unreliable chitty companies, KSFE stands apart for its credibility. With government-guaranteed chitty and deposit schemes, customers do not face the risk of losing their money.

While KSFE helps improve the living standards of the public, KFC (Kerala Financial Corporation) supports small businesses. Together, both institutions inject funds into the state economy equal to the size of the state budget — one of the Kerala government’s biggest achievements, as stated by Finance Minister Balagopal. It’s also important to remember the foresight of P. K. Kunju, the finance minister in E. M. S. Namboodiripad’s seven-party government, who founded KSFE. Even he might not have imagined that, fifty years later, KSFE would become the leading chitty company in the country. From just 10 branches and 45 employees at the start, KSFE has grown to 683 branches and nearly 9,000 employees today. Let us hope KSFE continues to write more success stories in the years ahead.