India’s largest bank HDFC revamps top management after mega merger

By Preeti Singh

HDFC Bank Ltd. is revamping some parts of its top management as the Indian bank seeks to propel its mortgages business, three months after it acquired another lender. 

The bank detailed the changes in a memo to employees late Sunday, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified discussing private information. 

It has brought information technology and digital functions, led by Ramesh Lakshminarayanan directly under Chief Executive Officer Sashidhar Jagdishan as the bank leans on technology to offer more products and services across its branches, the people said.

Ashish Parthasarthy a bank veteran who has led treasury since 2009, will get responsibility for the key retail branch business, which handles deposits and product distribution, they added.

“The runway for our growth is large. This change is being done to bring in a very sharp focus on leveraging what we have built and for enhanced execution,” Jagdishan said in a memo seen by Bloomberg News.

The lender’s shares have come under pressure since the takeover of Housing Development Finance Corp. in July, which made HDFC one of the world’s largest banks. It also faced a rare downgrade last month from Nomura Holdings Inc., which cited concerns on HDFC’s return on assets and pressures on loan growth. 

HDFC agreed last April to acquire the country’s largest mortgage lender in a deal valued at about 49,95,09 crores to ride a boom in home loans and consumer spending in the world’s fastest-growing major economy.

The deal to merge the two companies with a combined market value of almost 1,58,16,94 crores at that time followed a proposal by the banking regulator for large non-banking finance companies to convert into banks to avoid a repetition of the nation’s massive shadow lending crisis in 2018.

Under Parthasarthy, the lender is splitting the geographical management of the retail branch business to handle its expansion and product plans in a more structured way, the people said. It will be co-led by Smita Bhagat and Sampath Kumar. 

Bhagat, one of the senior women leaders at the bank, was previously the group head for government and institutional business, ecosystem banking, inclusive banking and start-ups. Kumar was group head of liability products, third party products and non-resident business at the bank.

Other key changes:

• Arvind Vohra, who previously led the retail branch business will take over the bank’s retail assets, excluding mortgages, which will be led by Arvind Kapil as previously reported.

• Parag Rao, who led previously led payments, consumer finance and digital banking, has an expanded portfolio and will lead product liabilities as well as product management, including marketing.

• Rakesh Singh will continue to lead investment banking and private banking, and will have additional responsibility for the offshore international business, the people said.