Sandeep Sood has moved on from L&T Financial Services and joined HDFC Bank as Senior Vice President- Technology Risk. He will be based out of Mumbai.
HDFC Bank is one of India’s largest banks providing a wide range of financial products and services to over 43 million customers.
In the new role, Sood will be overseeing the bank’s various upcoming and ongoing digital transformation initiatives.
In his previous stint with L&T Finacial Services, Sood was Head-IT Infrastructure & Services. He was associated with the company for more than 4 years.
Sood has more than 26 years of professional experience and has worked with companies like NPCI, Reliance Jio Infocomm, HCL Comnet and Tatanet Services.
Throughout his career, Sood has been involved in various projects including Service Delivery, IT Management, Management, Outsourcing, Project Management, Business Process, Solution Architecture.
He completed his graduation in Telecommunications & Network from BITS Pilani. Sood also holds a certificate in Managing IT Projects from IIM-A.
The Reserve Bank of India’s decision to keep corporates away from bank licences will help the government sidestep allegations that it is selling banks to big business. However, the number of prospective buyers for public sector banks (PSBs) will shrink.
In the absence of any deep-pocketed corporate house, the bidders for PSU banks would have to be either private or multinational banks, or private equity investors who would be in a position to come up with a couple of billion dollars to buy a bank. The challenge in the case of private equity investors is that they would look for an exit after a few years, while multinational banks are increasingly reducing their retail exposure as retail banking is becoming a domestic activity because of compliance costs.
Private players like HDFC Bank, Kotak, ICICI and Axis have the equity-raising capacity, but the pension liabilities would be a deterrent. In March this year, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman had said that the salary and pension of bank employees will be protected in the case of privatisation. “The deal-breaker would be the pension liabilities of these banks,” said a private banker. The fact that the pension is inflation-linked makes it worse for any buyer.
The source added that this is the reason why the banks are trading at low valuations despite having cleaned up their loan books.
For private banks, a bank licence or a branch network does have the same appeal that it would have for a corporate house. More so given the disruption that digital is causing. “Unlike in the past when a domestic bank licence would draw a lot of interest, there was only one serious bidder for Lakshmi Vilas Bank — DBS. When the RBI was looking for someone to take over PMC Bank, despite the lure of a licence of a Mumbai-headquartered bank, there was again only one bidder,” pointed out a banker.
While the PSBs are in better financial shape, a buyer would need to put in more capital and probably see a hike in the cost of funds as the government ownership, which provides a cushion to depositors, will no longer be there. Since liberalisation, the central bank has taken the safe route of issuing bank licences to financial institutions. The first round of banks that got their licence was largely sponsored by financial institutions, including HDFC, ICICI, UTI, IDBI and some non-banking finance companies such as Centurion, Kotak Mahindra and Bandhan. The experience in granting licences to professionals has not been good (Global Trust Bank and Yes Bank). The absence of private non-bank financial institutions makes the divestment more challenging.
New Delhi, Nov 26 (PTI) HDFC Bank on Friday said its board has approved the appointment of former RBI executive director Lily Vadera as independent director. The board of directors of the bank approved the appointment of Lily Vadera as an additional independent director of the bank for a period of five years effective from November 26, 2021, subject to the approval of the shareholders, HDFC Bank said in a regulatory filing.
Vadera, 61, has 33 years of experience in central banking. She retired as Executive Director from the Reserve Bank of India in October 2020.
As an ED of the RBI, she was in-charge of the Department of Regulation (DoR) where she dealt with the regulatory framework for various entities in the financial sector, covering all categories of banks and non-banking finance companies.
She was instrumental in putting in place a framework for a regulatory Sandbox to provide an enabling environment for fintech players to foster innovation in financial services and played a significant role in the amalgamation of banks in stress, the bank said.
She also represented RBI and played an important role as a member of the Insolvency Law Committee set up by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs. PTI KPM MR MR
Equitas Small Finance Bank on Tuesday announced its partnership with HDFC Bank, for a co-branded credit card. Equitas said that the partnership will draw on HDFC Bank’s strengths in the credit card market and its substantial reach.
“As India’s largest card issuing and acquiring bank we are committed to accelerating the adoption of digitization in the country by engaging with all players in the banking and payments ecosystem,” said Parag Rao, Group Head – Payments, Consumer Finance, Digital Banking & IT, HDFC Bank said. “This first-of-its-kind partnership for HDFC Bank will enable us to extend our best-in-class offerings in the cards segment to Equitas Small Finance Bank’s customers and provide them with a highly rewarding credit card experience.”
HDFC Bank has a dominant share in both card issuing and acquiring business. With over 5.1 crore credit cards, debit cards and prepaid cards, every third rupee spent on cards in India happens on HDFC Bank cards. HDFC Bank also has over 21 lakh acceptance points, making it among the largest facilitators of cashless payments in the country.
The credit card can be availed in two categories. The first category is the ‘Excite Credit Card’ which offers a credit limit from Rs 25,000 to Rs 2 lakh and the second category is the ‘Elegance Credit Card’ which offers credit of over Rs 2 lakh.
“Over the last five years, we have witnessed a transformation sweeping the industry,” said Murali Vaidyanathan, Senior President and Country Head – Branch Banking – Liabilities, Products & Wealth – Equitas Small Finance Bank Limited. “There have been countless success stories of people borrowing small amounts of money while building financial assets and creating a formal financial footprint.”
In August, the lender had said it would recoup its share over the next three to four quarters.
HDFC Bank is looking to tap into the customer base of Chennai-headquartered Equitas Small Finance Bank (SFB) with two co-branded credit cards launched on Tuesday. The target is to issue the cards to 20% of Equitas SFB’s customer base over the next 12-18 months.
The two categories of cards on offer will be the Excite credit card, with a credit limit between Rs 25,000 and Rs 2 lakh, and the Elegance credit card, with a credit limit of over `2 lakh.
Murali Vaidyanathan, senior president and country head – branch banking liabilities, products & wealth – Equitas SFB, said close to five lakh customers will be eligible for the cards. “At a product penetration level, at least two in every 10 customers should have our co-branded card one year or 18 months from now — that is the approach within the qualified base with which we are moving forward. That means we are talking 20-25% penetration of the qualified base which incrementally gets added every month,” he said.
The underwriting for the co-branded cards will be done by HDFC Bank using the processes and algorithms it uses for its other customers. The outstanding amounts will also be reflected on HDFC Bank’s books.
Parag Rao, group head – payments, consumer finance, digital banking & IT, HDFC Bank, said the bank intends to address the under-penetration of electronic payment instruments in India and expand the market in association with Equitas SFB, whose roots lie in microfinance. “We’ve decided that competition and working with competition actually is a merit rather than a demerit and therein comes our strategy of partnerships with other banks,” Rao said.
He said, “Our job, beyond just looking at businesses at HDFC Bank, as market leader is to expand the market and we do believe partnerships and alliances wherein two like-minded entities come together for a co-created product to offer it to a certain set of customers will only deepen the market.”
HDFC Bank leads the credit card market in terms of the number of cards in force, with 1.5 crore cards outstanding at September-end as per data from the Reserve Bank of India. The bank’s incremental issuances took a hit between December 2020 and August 2021 due to a regulatory embargo on new credit card issuances during the period. Rival ICICI Bank took pole position in new issuances during the eight-month period. HDFC Bank is now working to claw its way back to the top. In August, the lender had said it would recoup its share over the next three to four quarters.
The co-branded cards will be issued by Visa. TR Ramachandran, group country head – India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, Visa, said credit card penetration in the country stands at about 6% in terms of the number of cards and only 3-4% in terms of individuals owning credit cards.
“There is a large nascent market for everyday digital payments more so on the credit side, because credit is also becoming a day-to-day feature rather than only for luxury and discretionary items, which means grocery, transport, everyday spends particularly —as the line between online and offline payments blurs,” Ramachandran said.
The cards will be issued through application programming interface (API) banking. As a result, there will be no data flow from Equitas SFB into the HDFC Bank system, Vaidyanathan said. “We will let the rule engine decide. We’ll pre-qualify accounts on first sight and then start selling it to our consumers,” he said.
Thereafter, based on Cibil ranking, Equitas will start identifying new-to-bank customers. “HDFC Bank handles only the card side of the issue and they will have the details relevant to the card with them and nothing from liabilities or transactions will be reflected or seen on that side,” Vaidyanathan said.
Equitas Small Finance Bank had HDFC Bank have partnered for co-branded credit cards.
“The credit cards will be available for Equitas Small Finance Bank’s customers, with an aim to provide them with the facilities of the banking ecosystem,” they said in a statement on Tuesday.
The credit card can be availed in two categories. The first category is the ‘Excite Credit Card’ which offers a credit limit from ₹25,000 to ₹2 lakh and the second category is the ‘Elegance Credit Card’ which offers credit limit of over ₹2 lakh.
The worst seems to be over for banks in the pandemic, going by the drop in bad loan provisioning numbers. The bad loan provisioning by banks fell sequentially for the second consecutive quarter in the three months ended September 2021, led by a significant drop in some of the private sector banks. The trend is likely to continue on account of improved collections and lower slippages.
The aggregate provisioning towards non-performing assets (NPA) or loan loss provision for a sample of 29 banks fell by 20.5 per cent sequentially and 10.9 per cent year-on-year to Rs 30,400 crore. It has softened over the past two quarters after peaking at Rs 65,986.9 crore in the March 2021 quarter when banks resumed accounting for slippages.
Private banks at the forefront
The fall in the September quarter was driven by a sharp 43.9 per cent drop in loan loss provisioning by the private sector banks at the aggregate level. Top banks including HDFC Bank, Axis Bank, Kotak Bank, and IndusInd Bank recorded a double-digit sequential drop in the NPA provisioning.
The public sector banks on the other hand reported a modest 1.6 per cent fall in the NPA provisioning. Their share in the sample’s NPA provisioning increased to 68.5 per cent from 55.3 per cent in the previous quarter.
Analysts expect the asset quality of banks to improve gradually in the coming quarters following a pick up in economic activity and recovery in collections.
“Banks slippage ratios reduced substantially by 100 basis points QoQ on an average in the September quarter. The asset quality situation is likely to improve further driven by a reduction in retail as well as SME nonperforming loans in the coming quarters,” a Macquarie Capital Securities (India) note said.
The banks’ net interest income increased by 3.7 per cent sequentially and 2.4 per cent year-on-year to Rs 1.3 lakh crore. The sequential growth was faster for PSU banks at 5 per cent compared with 2.1 per cent for the private sector banks.
Largest private sector lender HDFC bank on Monday said it will be organising 2,000 workshops over the next four months for preventing financial frauds.
The campaign will tell the customers about ways to safeguard themselves against financial fraud, starting with not disclosing any information on banking details.
A special focus is being given to the youth segment, where the bank will be targeting Senior Secondary Schools and Colleges, so that the awareness is ingrained, as per an official statement.
“Digitalization offers customers unparalleled convenience and access to banking services. With these conveniences comes a lot of risks of cyber frauds as well. The fraudsters are constantly on the prowl looking out for gullible customers,” it’s managing director and chief executive Sashidhar Jagdishan said.
The second edition of the campaign titled ‘Mooh Band Rakho’ was launched by K. Rajeswara Rao, Special Secretary, NITI Aayog. Lt General Dr Rajesh Pant, National Cyber Security Co-ordinator, was also present.
Mumbai, Nov 15 (PTI) Largest private sector lender HDFC bank on Monday said it will be organising 2,000 workshops over the next four months for preventing financial frauds. The campaign will tell the customers about ways to safeguard themselves against financial fraud, starting with not disclosing any information on banking details.
A special focus is being given to the youth segment, where the bank will be targeting Senior Secondary Schools and Colleges, so that the awareness is ingrained, as per an official statement.
“Digitalization offers customers unparalleled convenience and access to banking services. With these conveniences comes a lot of risks of cyber frauds as well. The fraudsters are constantly on the prowl looking out for gullible customers,” it’s managing director and chief executive Sashidhar Jagdishan said.
The second edition of the campaign titled ‘Mooh Band Rakho’ was launched by K. Rajeswara Rao, Special Secretary, NITI Aayog. Lt General Dr Rajesh Pant, National Cyber Security Co-ordinator, was also present.
Six of the 10 most valued companies together added Rs 1,18,383.07 crore in market valuation last week, with major contribution coming in from Reliance Industries Limited. During the last week, the 30-share BSE benchmark jumped 619.07 points or 1.03 per cent.
The valuation of Reliance Industries Limited zoomed Rs 59,437.12 crore to reach Rs 16,44,511.70 crore.
Infosys added Rs 29,690.9 crore to take its market valuation to Rs 7,48,580.98 crore. HDFC’s valuation gained Rs 17,187 crore to Rs 5,41,557.77 crore and that of Tata Consultancy Services jumped Rs 5,715.04 crore to Rs 13,03,730.66 crore.
The market capitalisation (mcap) of Kotak Mahindra Bank rose by Rs 3,301.84 crore to Rs 4,11,183.32 crore and that of Bajaj Finance by Rs 3,051.17 crore to Rs 4,57,355.51 crore.
In contrast, the valuation of HDFC Bank Ltd diminished by Rs 22,545.39 crore to Rs 8,60,436.44 crore. State Bank of India’s market valuation declined by Rs 17,135.26 crore to Rs 4,56,270.76 crore.
The valuation of Hindustan Unilever Limited dipped by Rs 3,912.07 crore to reach Rs 5,65,546.62 crore and that of ICICI Bank by Rs 3,810.99 crore to Rs 5,39,016.40 crore.
In the ranking of most valued firms, Reliance Industries Limited was leading the chart followed by Tata Consultancy Services, HDFC Bank, Infosys, Hindustan Unilever Limited, HDFC, ICICI Bank, Bajaj Finance, State Bank of India and Kotak Mahindra Bank. PTI SUM MR
Financial Express is now on Telegram.