What caused 14% degrowth in Kotak Mahindra's quarterly profit? Ashok Vaswani explains

Time of India

05-05-2025

Ashok Vaswani
, MD & CEO,
Kotak Mahindra Bank
, acknowledges challenges in the microfinance sector during recent quarters. Kotak Mahindra Bank has launched new
mobile banking apps
after an embargo. The bank prioritizes sustainable growth, aiming for 1.5 to 2 times nominal GDP growth. Kotak Mahindra Bank emphasizes prudence and avoiding excessive risk.
Explain the 14% degrowth in the quarterly profit? What is the reason for that?
Ashok Vaswani:
The fundamental issue has been around the microfinance business. That is a business which has over the years delivered very good results for us. In Q3 and Q4, it has obviously been very difficult. This is an industry-wide issue and the losses have obviously kind of overwhelmed really well. And the good news is during the quarter, we got a technology embargo and then we have got exciting plans as we go ahead.
You talked about the embargo. Now that problem is away, what is your plan for FY26? How will it help and what is your target now?
Ashok Vaswani:
The whole idea was to utilise the time when we were under embargo not only just to fix the basics around resilience, capacity planning, and all that kind of good stuff, but we rethought the entire go-to-market strategy from a digital perspective. Coming out of the embargo, we have launched the new mobile banking app for the Kotak customer as well as new apps for the 811 customers. Both these apps are being very well taken up by customers and they are unique to that particular customer segment.
So, we can make it really targeted, which is what has been my mantra, customer segmentation, customer focus, and how you build propositions for that customer and that is what we are going to continue to do. So, whether it is 811, the mobile app, whether it is platforms for our corporate customers which we have invested in so that we can get much better payment solutions, whether it is in Kotak Securities with our new app and how customers can do much more or investments for our average banking customers on our Cherry app – we are going very strongly ahead with our technology efforts.
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You have maintained that you plan to grow 1.5 to 2 times of nominal GDP growth in
loan growth
. Going ahead in this financial year, will you continue with that plan which means the growth which is there this year can be slightly better or will there be some pressure?
Ashok Vaswani:
This is more of a risk appetite statement. If you are growing very aggressively beyond two, two-and-a-half times normal GDP growth, you are obviously taking additional risks. My goal is to build a sustainable franchise which our customers are very proud of. That requires me to do it with prudence and not take any shortcuts. So, what we are saying is from a prudent statement and not taking on too much risk, we believe one-and-a-half to two times nominal GDP growth is a good thing. Now, there may be certain circumstances, like we come across a particular acquisition or there are some areas which we have never done before which we want to go into which will grow, but the guiding principle is 1.5-2 times, exceptional circumstances may apply.
And similarly for
deposit growth
how do you assess this fiscal year?
Ashok Vaswani:
Last fiscal year, at least the first three quarters were tough because market liquidity was tough and saw the entire banking system kind of struggle with deposit growth. Q4 became much easier. Into this fiscal year, we are seeing liquidity easing by the RBI which obviously bodes well. I think repo rates are going to have a pretty significant impact. On the capital market side, as we have seen last year, in the first half, capital markets were doing exceptionally well, so everybody was channeling their savings into the capital markets. How capital markets behave out into this fiscal year is to be seen.
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