Want to create all-weather franchise

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) recently approved Amitabh Chaudhry's re-appointment as managing director and chief executive officer of Axis Bank for three more years. Chaudhry, who took charge of the third-largest private sector lender in January 2019, spoke to Manojit Saha and Subrata Panda in Mumbai on what it will take to be in the top two private banks in the country. Edited excerpts:

- Amitabh Chaudhry, MD & CEO, Axis Bank

RBI has approved your appointment for another three years. What would you look to achieve?

Within 90 days of joining, we launched the growth, profitability, sustainability (GPS) strategy. On top of GPS, we have had a return of equity (RoE) of 18 per cent in the last 8 or 9 quarters.

Our ambition at that time was to become the number one player in our identified areas of businesses. That journey is still on.

Additionally, our journey on customer obsession, Bharat Bank, and Digital Bank is still not done. We have seen something do very well when the times are good but maybe not as well when the times are bad. Ultimately, we want to create an all-weather franchise.

Are you looking to break into the top two positions in credit cards, and otherwise?

If you look at the number of credit cards outstanding, the gap between us and HDFC Bank is quite large. We are acquiring at a pace which we have not done in the past.

Ultimately, four or five players will be the ones that truly matter. Scale becomes very important. The push to raise the bar on customer expectations will continue driving us in a direction where we have to offer the same services at lower prices. But how can you achieve that unless you have the scale to invest in technology, continuously improve customer journeys, and digitize processes to the point where they can be executed quickly and at lower costs? Only scale allows you to do this.

Are you planning to make any acquisitions?