Vaswani to steer Kotak's bid for digital leadership

Months after taking over as chief executive of Barclays UK in 2016, Ashok Vaswani made a 12-page presentation at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch Financials Conference that showed his willingness to put digital banking at the forefront of customer strategy.

- Shayan Ghosh

"In my opinion, we are the largest fintech company in the UK," Vaswani said on 27 September 2016, likening the British bank to new-age financial companies that use technology to differentiate their businesses from traditional lenders. Then, he went on to explain how one in every two people in the UK has some kind of relationship with the bank, and highlighted its high levels of customer engagement.

Seven years later, Vaswani is all set to be the new CEO of private lender Kotak Mahindra Bank, taking over from founder and billionaire banker Uday Kotak. On Saturday, the bank said the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has approved a three-year term for Vaswani.

At the domestic lender, which launched its own digital-banking platform called 811 in 2017, Vaswani is expected to drive the digital agenda. Given Kotak's laser focus on digital banking in the September quarter, 95% of new personal loans by volume were disbursed digitally and 97% of new credit cards were sold digitally-his appointment comes at an opportune time.

Vaswani, who has championed using data and analytics towards better customer experience, is currently president of Pagaya Technologies Ltd, a US-Israeli Al fintech.