Kotak Mahindra Bank Completes Acquisition Of Standard Chartered Personal Loan Book For Rs 3,330 Crore

Kotak Mahindra Bank has completed the personal loan book buyout of Standard Chartered Bank, India, worth Rs 3,330 crore, after receiving necessary regulatory approvals, the bank said in an exchange filing.

This has come as the country's fourth-largest private lender aims to strengthen its position in the retail credit market. The high-quality loan book from Standard Chartered Bank will allow the bank to build on its strength in the affluent customer segment and further reinforce its leadership in the retail lending space.

This is also the first large acquisition reported under Ashok Vaswani, who took over as managing director and chief executive officer on Jan. 1, 2024, completing a year at the bank.

Previously, under Uday Kotak, the bank was reportedly looking at buying Citibank's India consumer business, which included the credit card portfolio. However, Axis Bank finally purchased that portfolio.

For the quarter ended December, the bank's advances increased 16% year-on-year to Rs 4.33 lakh crore. Unsecured retail advances, including retail microcredit as a percentage of net advances, were 10.5%, lower than 11.3% a quarter ago.