Formed in 1930 as a small company to introduce automobile hire-purchase, The Motor and General Finance (MGF) grew to become the MGF group. MGF group has five more companies in its fold of which Motor and General Finance is the flagship company. In the last 60 years, MGF group has broadened its footprint and diversified into the leasing of construction, mining and other equipments. International Finance Corpoartion, an affiliate of the World Bank, has co-promoted a company along with MGF, under the name India Lease Development.

MGF is engaged in the hire purchase of all types of transport vehicles, mainly of TELCO. The company has emerged as one of the largest TELCO dealers in the country, with particular emphasis on Kerala and Tamilnadu. The company diversified into financing earth moving equipments for the construction and mining industries. The company diversified into new areas such as merchant banking, insurance, housing finance, stock brokerage, asset management, corporate advisory services, single-point fund management for corporate clients and extension of factoring to both consumer and industrial debts.

MGF floated a company with Citicorp Securities and Investments (CSIL), an associate of Citibank, to offer scientifically successfully engineered collection systems.