chennai kerala based gold loan player muthoot finance has applied to the reserve bank of india for a banking license we are looking to convert our existing network of 4400 branches into full fledged bank branches subject to rbi approval kp padmakumar executive director muthoot finance said he added that 70 of the branch network was in rural and tier ii locations rbi regulations mandate new banks to open at least 25 of its branches in unbanked rural centres if the license comes through muthoot would have to float a nonoperative financial holding company nofhc as per rbi guidelines new bank promoters would have to set up nohfc which in turn will hold the new bank this company would be set up as an nbfc non banking finance company with a minimum net worth of rs 500 crore in our case 10 of the shareholding would be by promoters while the remaining 90 of the shares would be held by muthoot finance padmakumar said while cost of banking operations is higher in rural areas padmakumar said muthoot would try to balance that out by raising low cost deposits through the casa current account saving account route in urban branches today the casa ratio of big commercial banks ranges from 40 to 50 padmakumar said we are looking at a business per branch of rs 20 to rs 25 crore from urban locations and rs 4 crore from rural branches padmakumar said last week muthoot finance had informed stock exchanges that the rbi had granted in principle authorization to the company for setting up white label atms we have started negotiations with banks for cash and payment settlement transactions for the same padmakumar added muthoot is looking to set up 1000 atms in the first phase subject to final approvals from the central bank