India's Best Banks 2019

Cover Story

India's Best Banks 2019

  • 1/10

Mid-Sized Indian Banks

Kotak Mahindra Bank
Led by MD and CEO, Uday Kotak, Kotak Mahindra Bank is gradually scaling up its universal banking model to play a bigger role in the financial services market.

  • 2/10

Innovation & Bank of the Year

SBI
SBI is ahead in terms of deposits, advances and fee income, essential growth parameters in private-sector banking. Rajnish Kumar, Chairman of the State Bank of India, wants the country's largest bank to focus on being transformative.

  • 3/10

Small Indian Banks

RBL Bank
RBL Bank's credit card portfolio is among the fastest-growing in the industry, having increased 2.6 times in the last one year with a 1.47 million cards now. But for RBL's Managing Director and CEO Vishwavir Ahuja, growth is the outcome, not the target.

  • 4/10

Financial Inclusion

PNB
The fourth largest bank by assets in the country has been aggressive in providing banking services in the hinterland. Sunil Mehta, Managing Director and CEO, PNB, says that the bank has focussed on an inclusive business model, adding the bank has expanded outreach by deploying more BCs. "We are aggressively pushing mobile banking as most rural residents have a mobile, said Mehta.

  • 5/10

Best Fintech- Lending

LendingKart
Under co-founders Harshvardhan Lunia and Mukul Sachan, LendingKart has disbursed over 45,000 loans to over 33,000 micro, small and medium enterprises.

  • 6/10

Large Foreign BanksJP Morgan Bank

JP Morgan is aggressively using technology and expanding its corporate client base in India. Kalpana Morparia, CEO, South and South East Asia, JP Morgan, says that machine learning, artificial intelligence and Big Data are enabling them to do new things.

  • 7/10

Best Bank Overall

HDFC Bank
The largest private sector bank, HDFC Bank, is looking to grow in semi-urban and rural markets. The bank is the most valued Indian lender in the stock market with a market capitalisation of Rs 5.67 lakh crore. "It is a journey where we have clearly defined our objectives," says Aditya Puri, MD and CEO, HDFC BANK .

  • 8/10

Best Fintech- Payments

Ezetap
Eight-year-old Ezetap is building a digital payments ecosystem through low-cost innovative solutions. Bhaktha Keshavachar (left), Co-Founder and CTO, says that the company has always said that the eventual goal of payments is not the transaction but the services the company delivers. Byas Nambisan has taken over as the CEO after Abhijit 'Bobby' Bose moved out to become the first India head of Facebook-owned WhatsApp.

  • 9/10

Best Fintech- VAS

CreditMantri
CreditMantri is contributing towards creating a healthy credit culture in the financial system. Ranjit Punja, 49, Founder and CEO of Chennai-based CreditMantri, is unlike of many other Fintech entrepreneurs. He spent over two decades with Citibank before the entrepreneur bug bit him. Ditto for the two other co-founders - R Sudarshan, the Chief Operating Offer, and Gowri Mukherjee, who is the Chief Marketing Officer.

  • 10/10

Best Fintech Engagement

Bank of Baroda
Bank of Baroda is using the partnership model to stay ahead of competition in digital banking. "All our partnerships can be put into three main categories - lending, wealth and technology and payments. About 60 per cent of our business is lending, out of which 70-80 per cent is SME lending," says Akhil Handa, Head, Fintech and New Businesses Initiatives, Bank of Baroda.