HDFC Bank wins Business Today's Best Bank Award for 2017

HDFC Bank has won the Business Today Best Bank Award for 2017 for the fourth consecutive year. The award was received by HDFC Deputy Managing Director Paresh Sukthankar. The largest private sector bank in terms of assets, HDFC Bank bagged four awards for the night - Bank of the Year, India's Best Large Bank, India's Fastest Growing Large Bank, and The Best Bank for Innovation.

The 22nd edition of the annual Business Today's Best Bank's survey had total 15 winners, including awards for the Fintech sector. The awards were divided into two parts - Quantitative (survey) and Jury Awards. The Quantitative Awards were anchored by Business Today's knowledge partner and auditing firm KPMG. The Jury Awards were introduced three years back, while this year's awards also included a category for fintechs.

Of the 15 awards, seven awards were decided by a jury. Four of these - Bank of the Year, Best Bank-Innovation, Best Bank in Financial Inclusion and Best Fintech Engagement - were for awarded for banks, while the three jury awards were given in the Fintech sector.

SS Mundra, former deputy governor of Reserve Bank of India, while giving away the awards, said: "It's the most challenging time for the banking sector. However, one needs to keep calm, think about mistake and see how they aren't committed in the future." Mundra opined that while it's a great opportunity to learn the lessons, and that banks should think of resolution not liquidation as priority. He said the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) should not be involved for solving all the banking (bad debt) problems.

Mundra also spoke about how the banks' management and boards should take risk management and compliance seriously. They should not hesitate in hiring experts from outside for tackling their operational risk, he said.

Prosenjit Datta, Editor of Business Today, highlighted how a number of scams in the past few months had rocked the Indian banking systems at a time when they were already grappling with the rising non-performing assets (NPAs). Datta added that even during the time of despair and falling sentiments, the shooting star had been the virtual revolution in digital banking. Financial technology has become mainstream in payments and lending, he said.

"Technology like artificial intelligence and blockchain are becoming a part of many bank's arsenal, and can cause revolution in banking over the next few years as new technology applications are deployed," said Datta.

He added: "Technology will help banks build safer systems, understand and serve the customer better, deepen financial inclusion, and expand the scope of banking to the unbanked areas of the country."

Introducing for the first time, Business Today awarded three fintech awards. Paytm received the Best Fintech Award for payment; BankBazaar for lending; and Perfios Software for the Value Added Services (VAS).

"Fintech is creating disruption in the banking sector, and therefore banks should constantly review their revenue stream," said Mundra, adding that "If we (banks) don't disrupt ourselves, someone else will do, which we may not like."

He added: "Going ahead, disruption, innovation and competition will hold key in fintech in regards to the banking sector." Meanwhile, India's largest state-owned lender, State Bank of India, was given the Best Bank Award in financial inclusion segment, while ICICI Bank received the award under the Best Fintech Engagement category.

Regarding the problems faced by the banking sector in the past few years, each expert believed that these financial institutions would need to navigate through the turbulent time.

Under the quantitative category, Kotak Bank was awarded the Best Mid-Sized Bank, while RBL Bank was awarded as the Best Small Bank. Bank of America won the Best Foreign Bank as well as the Fastest Growing Foreign Bank awards. Yes Bank and Dhanalaxmi Bank won the Fastest Growing Mid-Sized Bank and Small Bank awards, respectively.