Ashok Vaswani

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) gave its approval on Saturday to Ashok Vaswani’s nomination as Kotak Mahindra Bank’s managing director and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) for a three-year term. The appointment will take effect as of the day of assuming charge, which cannot be later than 1 January 2024, the lender stated in a regulatory filing.

From 2016 to 2019, Vaswani served as the CEO of Barclays in the United Kingdom. He also served as the British bank’s worldwide CEO for consumer and payments between 2019 and 2021. He served as Barclays’ chief digital officer from November 2021 to July 2022 before leaving the company.

The decision is based on the bank’s request for RBI’s approval of the new Managing Director & CEO of the bank on 19 July 2023. He is a veteran banker with exceptional track record and brings with him significant expertise in both consumer and corporate business, particularly for digital drive. Ashok is basically ghar vapsi and fits into the overall broad theme of getting global talent back to India and running our companies,” said Dipak Gupta, interim MD & CEO of Kotak Mahindra Bank.

The news came on a day when it recorded a net profit of Rs 3,191 crore for the July to September FY24 quarter, beating market expectations of Rs 3,092 crore. This is a 23.66 per cent increase from the Rs 2,581 crore clocked in the year-ago period.