Kotak Mahindra Bank leadership change: Affluent banking, digital channels, payments in focus from January 1

Kotak Mahindra Bank will continue to focus on key segments, including affluent customers and the core mass-market consumer base, driven by digital channels such as Kotak 811, as well as payments. The bank will also double down on its execution strategy, Anup Kumar Saha, who was recently appointed the private sector lender’s new MD and CEO effective January 1, 2027, said on Saturday.

“The bank is a very strong brand, very strongly associated with India's story. We called out our strategy pillars, the affluent and the private banking as our pillar number one. We called out core and digital India, which is the 811 variants. We continue to remain very invested,” Saha said while interacting with reporters.

Saha joined Kotak Bank in January 2026 and is currently the executive director overseeing the retail banking, data analytics and marketing functions.

He said the bank had been convinced of the potential of payments for many years. With the merchant discount rate (MDR) set to be levied on the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), the segment could emerge as another growth driver. The bank has a market share of over 3.8%, and more than 13% of its digital assets are used by customers to make payments, according to Saha.

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Another growth pillar for the bank is banking for small and medium enterprises. Kotak Bank had brought its agriculture, business and SME operations under a single vertical, which Saha said would help it build stronger relationships with customers.

“We double down on our execution ability of the strategy, which we have put up and focus on excellence,” he stressed.

Kotak Bank on Saturday reported a 29% year-on-year increase in standalone net profit for the July-September quarter to Rs 4,212 crore. Net interest income for the second quarter rose 16% from a year ago to Rs 8,459 crore.

Net interest margin (NIM), however, moderated to 4.31% from 4.54%, largely weighed down by the mobilisation of FCNR (B) deposits during the quarter. Kotak Bank had raised Rs 55,344 crore through FCNR (B) deposits during the quarter under the special concessional swap window opened by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to stabilise the rupee against the US dollar.

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These pressures are expected to be offset in the coming quarters by an increase in lending rates following the RBI’s 25-basis-point repo rate hike at its latest Monetary Policy Committee meeting.

The lender has so far used part of the funds raised through FCNR (B) deposits to repay expensive borrowings and finance the acquisition of its subsidiary, Kotak Mahindra Investments, he noted.

“As the (remaining) amount gets deployed in higher yielding customer assets, you will see that reflecting in the NIMs going forward. Of course, added to this will be the repricing of the repo book; about 60% of our existing advances are repo linked,” said Devang Gheewalla, group CFO of Kotak Bank.

The lender has also seen a further decline in its non-performing assets. As of September 30, 2026, Kotak Bank’s gross NPAs stood at 1.04%, down from 1.39% a year ago. Its net NPAs also declined to 0.24% from 0.32% over the same period.

Over the past 24 months, the bank has completely revamped its risk underwriting models and collections capabilities, MD and CEO Ashok Vaswani noted. These efforts, he said, had paid “rich dividends”, with both credit costs and asset quality improving.

Following a weak monsoon season this year, concerns are rising about the agriculture sector and the broader rural economy. Bank officials said they had not seen any signs of stress yet but remained watchful, as the rainfall deficiency was a cause for concern.

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