With a capital adequacy ratio more than double the regulatory minimum, CEO Ashok Vaswani says the bank is ready to grow — organically and inorganically
Kotak Mahindra Bank is actively scouting for acquisitions, including loan portfolios, as India’s fourth-largest private lender by after-tax profit looks to put its considerable surplus capital to work, CEO Ashok Vaswani said in an interview.
“I have very high ambitions,” Vaswani said, expressing openness to both organic and inorganic growth when the right opportunity arises. The bank, founded by billionaire Uday Kotak, has set its sights on becoming India’s third-largest private sector lender by after-tax profit, leapfrogging Axis Bank.
As far as the urgency to deploy capital is concerned, the simple problem is too much capital available for deployment. The current capital adequacy ratio for Kotak is 23% (double the minimum requirement of 9%) compared to other major private banks in India which maintain a capital adequacy ratio in the 16%-19% range. Having that much excess capital is negatively affecting Kotak’s return on equity, a key profitability metric.
On the acquisition front, Vaswani confirmed that discussions are continuing regarding a possible acquisition of Deutsche Bank’s India retail banking business. In fact, Kotak has already completed two significant acquisitions; the first was the purchase of Standard Chartered’s personal loan business in India during 2025; the second was the purchase of Sonata Finance, a microfinance lender, in 2023. The Bank also considered acquiring a minority interest in the state-owned IDBI Bank but later decided not to pursue this opportunity due to excessive valuation of the bank.
Besides providing loans, Kotak is growing its presence in the areas of alternative assets and financial markets infrastructure. Technology and artificial intelligence are also redefining the way the bank will look at their workforce strategy. Kotak has expanded their total assets by more than 17% over the last 12 months without increasing their total number of employees, and according to Vaswani, they will still be lagging behind the expansion of their total assets for the foreseeable future because of how much improvement in efficiency will come from using AI.
