The Competition Commission of India has given its nod for Kotak Mahindra Bank's acquisition of the unsecured personal loans portfolio of Standard Chartered Bank's India unit.
"CCI approves the proposed combination involving the acquisition of standard unsecured personal loans portfolio of Standard Chartered Bank, India Branch by Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd.," the antitrust regulator said in a release.
In October, Kotak Mahindra had signed an agreement to obtain Standard Chartered Bank's personal loan book in India. The transaction, aggregated to Rs 4,100 crore, includes standard loans and complies with the Reserve Bank of India guidelines.
The transaction was expected to be finalised within three months, subject to regulatory approvals and standard closing conditions.
This is the first major acquisition reported under Ashok Vaswani, who became Kotak Mahindra Bank's managing director and chief executive officer on Jan. 1.
Previously, under Uday Kotak, the bank wanted to purchase Citibank's India consumer business, including its credit card portfolio. But Axis Bank acquired that portfolio.
Interestingly, RBI had barred Kotak Mahindra Bank from onboarding new customers through digital channels and issuing fresh credit cards on Apr. 24. The restrictions were placed owing to deficiencies the regulator observed in Kotak Mahindra Bank's IT systems.
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