Private sector lender Kotak Mahindra Bank on Wednesday said it plans to double its customer base in the next 18 months on the back of its new offering — a zero balance savings account with zero charges.
Uday Kotak, executive vice-chairman and managing director of Kotak Mahindra Bank said the offering, namely 8-11, is based on the government’s plan to announce demonetisation on November 8 last year.
The account holders, who will need to download the Kotak Bank mobile application to open the savings account, will get interest rate of a maximum of 6%, at par with existing Kotak Bank customers.
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He said the fourth-largest private sector bank aimed to double its customer base from 8 million in 18 months. ICICI Bank, the country’s largest private sector lender has 35 million customers.
A prospective customer will need Aadhar number and PAN card to open and operate the account.
Separately, the bank sees huge business opportunity in resolving the huge stress that the banking sector is facing, Mr. Kotak said..
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“The total stress of the banking system, net of provisions is ₹14 lakh crore, which includes net NPA, restructured advances, security receipts from sale of bad loans to asset reconstruction companies (ARCs) etc. The banking sector is is expected to made further loss of ₹4 lakh crore which is the entire capital of the banking industry,” Mr. Kotak said.
He said need the country needs between two and three well capitalised bad banks to resolve the problem of bad loans.
“The ARCs badly capitalised. We see significant opportunity for Kotak in this,” he said.