Large private banks reach informal no-poaching pact

Private sector lenders are seeking to stem attrition, which is severe at the junior level

- Gopika Gopakumar

Large private sector banks such as ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, and Axis Bank have informally agreed among themselves not to poach employees from each other, as they seek to stem attrition, particularly at the junior level.

Senior executives in these private banks told Mint that they are ensuring that candidates with less than 2 years of work experience are not hired from a rival lender. Banks have been seeing attrition levels as high as 60% among the junior executives.

"We did have attrition which is very high at the junior level. It's a similar problem that the IT industry had faced.

We also probably had this incest, that is one employee going to the other bank, and each one looking for 40-50% higher salary. That seems to have slowed down.

There is some informal understanding, like how the IT companies have had, saying that let's not kill ourselves," said a senior official at a large private-sector bank.