Veteran SBI banker Vinay Tonse set to take charge as Yes Bank MD and CEO 

Veteran banker Vinay Muralidhar Tonse is set to take over as the managing director and CEO of Yes Bank from April 6, as the private sector lender looks to usher in its next phase of growth, having recovered from a near collapse in 2020.

Tonse takes over from Prashant Kumar who had been given charge of the bank in 2020 after massive stress on its loan book forced the Reserve Bank of India to step in and the bank had to be bailed out through capital infusion by a clutch of public and private sector banks.

Under Kumar's leadership, Yes Bank has cleaned up its book and has seen steady improvement in assets, building a strong retail franchise. It has in turn attracted new investors. In May 2025, Japanese financial major Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp. (SMBC) picked up a stake in Yes Bank. SMBC is the largest shareholder in the bank holding a little over 24 per cent stake.

Yes Bank saw its standalone net profit in the October-December quarter surge 55 per cent to Rs 952 crore, while the net interest income gained 11 per cent to Rs 2,466 crore.

"Yes Bank is no longer a turnaround story, but an early-cycle compounding opportunity, where improving return ratios, restored stakeholder confidence and operating leverage form the core pillars of the investment thesis," Ventura Securities in January. 

Investing in the bank now was akin to investing in a once distressed platform that had been rebuilt and was now scaling, it said. 

Separately, ICICI Securities had noted slippages at 1.6 per cent had been the lowest in past 8 quarters, but pointed that while retail slippages had eased, they were still elevated at 3.4 per cent annualized. 

Tonse who has been appointed as the MD and CEO of Yes Bank for three years, joins from State Bank of India, just like his predecessor Kumar. The country's largest lender had led the consortium to bail out Yes Bank under a government approved plan in 2020.

Most recently Tonse served as SBI managing director, leading the bank's retail operations, and managing a retail book of $800 billion.

Tonse "brings a rare breadth of leadership experience spanning retail and corporate banking, international markets, and asset management," said Rajeev Kannan, non-executive director of Yes Bank and senior executive of SMBC. 

His exposure across Japan and Singapore, combined with his deep understanding of the Indian financial ecosystem, positions him well to lead the bank into its next phase of growth, he added.