DFIs were started by the government to give sector-specific loans to various sectors- industry, agriculture, housing, infrastructure, export finance etc. The first DFI was the Industrial Financial Corporation of India (IFC) that was launched in 1948. The IDBI, UTI, NABARD, EXIM Bank, SIDBI, NHB, IIFCL etc are the other major DFIs. Later several of them were converted into banks as industry got opportunity to avail funds from the capital market (equity and debt) with the development of the capital market.
