India’s first all-woman bank, Bharatiya Mahila Bank (BMB) is all set to reach out to every state in the country as it gears up to open a branch in every state by the end of this fiscal, finance minister P Chidambaram has said. "I assure you that by March next year, the bank will open up branches in every state. There will be 25 branches that will be opened up in the coming 4-5 months before the fiscal year ends," the finance minister said after inaugurating the bank’s registered office and branch in the capital on Thursday. With the inauguration of the Delhi branch, the total number of the Mahila Bank branches has gone up to eight including one each in- Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Lucknow and Guwahati. Talking about the bank’s expansion drive, Chidambaram said that while the bank should continue to open up more and more branches, it is important to understand that the usual growth model adopted by public sector banks is not a good idea. "The other public sector banks like the State Bank of India (SBI) took a 100 years to grow and so the Mahila Bank should follow its own model of growth. It should come up with out of the box ideas to achieve growth quickly using technology and outsourcing certain functions of the bank," the minister said. Pointing at the poor progress of women empowerment in the country, Chidambaram said that only one percent of the assets in India were owned by women who constituted half of the population. Also, only ten percent of the income generated in the country accrued to women, he said adding that women empowerment is not possible without empowering them financially. "BMB is not merely a symbol of empowerment but the substance of empowerment and it will contribute a great deal in empowering women," Chidambaram said. In addition, Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit, who was also present at the inaugural function, recommended that more and more women friendly products that would help the existing entrepreneurs and prospective ones should be rolled out by the bank. The bank, which faces a mammoth task of including women from all sections of the society living in both urban and rural areas into the banking fold, has begun operations and has started interacting with self-help groups and NGOs to promote financial literacy among them, the bank’s CMD Usha Ananthasubramanian said. Following the announcement made by the finance minister in his budget speech, the bank was formally launched with an initial capital of Rs 1000 crore in November.