The Hindu : Kotak Mahindra Bank opens Chennai branch

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Dec 12, 2003

Business

Business

Kotak Mahindra Bank opens Chennai branch

By Our Corporate Reporter

Uday S. Kotak, Executive Vice Chairman and Managing Director, Kotak Mahindra Bank (right), with Dipak Gupta, Executive Director, at a press conference in Chennai on Thursday. — Photo: Bijoy Ghosh

CHENNAI DEC. 11. Kotak Mahindra Bank has launched its full-fledged retail branch in Chennai.

Addressing presspersons here today Uday Kotak, Executive Vice-Chairman and Managing Director of the bank said, Kotak Mahindra was largely into retail lending with the deployment of 75 per cent of its assets and was offering its customers personalised investment advice aimed at helping them manage and grow their wealth. He said India was moving from being a nation of savers to a nation of investors.

As the returns from savings were low with a significant drop in interest rates, every saver was trying to improve his return by investing his savings. This significant transformation would help the country's growth, Mr. Kotak said. "Our mindset is different from other banks as we are servicing the transformed saver", he said adding, "The two decades of expertise in wealth management will work to our advantage."

The bank was planning to open a branch in Hyderabad this month and in Bangalore next month and the focus would be on metro and mini metro cities, Mr. Kotak said. Over a three year period the bank would have 50 branches, he said.

According to Dipak Gupta, Executive Director, Chennai was a key market for the bank as there was immense potential for growth and expansion. He said the bank had one of the lowest net NPAs in the industry at about 0.3 per cent, highest credit rating of FAAA for deposits and a capital adequacy of about 20 per cent as on September 30, 2003.

The bank would be putting up adequate number of off-site ATMs at strategic locations. It had tied up with UTI Bank for allowing free-of-charge access on the latter's ATM network, Mr. Gupta said.

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