Prudence & Pragmatism

Customer focus, operational excellence, product leadership, people and sustainability remained the cornerstone of HDFC Bank’s success in FY 2019-20. The bank continued to play a key role in reshaping the financial services landscape in the country. Its wide range of products were tailored to meet the diverse needs of 5.6 crore-plus customers.

By the time Sashidhar Jagdishan took charge as the CEO in October 2020, HDFC Bank had already established a wide network of 5,416 banking outlets and 14,901 ATMs, including cash deposit and withdrawal machines at 2,803 locations, with a workforce of 116,971. With a balance sheet of more than Rs 15.30 lakh crore, HDFC Bank is perhaps the largest private sector lender by asset size. In FY20, the bank saw a 24 per cent jump in total deposits to over Rs 11.47 lakh crore while its net profit also jumped 24 per cent to cross Rs 26,250 crore. The bank’s net revenue stood at Rs 79,447 crore, which meant an increase of 20.6 per cent on a year-on-year basis.

In FY20, HDFC Bank put in place key digital innovations including ‘My Account My Choice’ where its CASA customers could choose an account number of their choice while opening an account; 66,000-plus accounts were activated with book balance of over Rs 5,000 crore, the bank said.

Some other digital innovations included the card-less cash withdrawal whereby customers could withdraw cash from HDFC Bank ATMs without The ATM card; Rs 6.5 crore withdrawals through 21,000-plus transactions were reported in FY20.

These were supplemented by common service centres (CSCs), and business correspondents, through tie-ups with the government and other alliance partners. Their best-in class digital products and platforms delivered an omnichannel experience across all touch points where about 91 per cent of transactions were held digitally. They also leveraged a pan-India presence to work for the sustainable development of communities. Through Parivartan, the umbrella brand for their social initiatives, they created programmes to bring about a positive change in the lives of 7.8 crore-plus people.

To better serve the underbanked population in the North-East region, the bank also announced the setting up of 100 more banking outlets over the next three years. As part of the ‘semi-urban and rural’ strategy, this expansion took the total banking outlets in the region to 230, including 18 in Sikkim. They are also working closely with the Central government to set up 650 CSCs in the region.

RENEWED PUSH: Rising income levels and aspirations in semi-urban and rural (SURU) markets of India have led to an increased demand for quality financial products and services. As a responsible leader in the financial services space, the bank delivered and continues to deliver best-in-class banking products and services accessible to all sections of the society

Backed by an unmatched physical reach and leveraging its technology capabilities, the bank made a renewed push in SURU markets in the past couple of years to deepen their penetration and expand into under-banked areas. This has been achieved through a wide range of customised offerings such as preand post-harvest crop loans, two-wheeler and auto loans, loans against gold jewellery, among others.

Their Kisan Gold Card provided loans to farmers across 1.25 lakh villages to help meet their production cost and post-harvest expenses. Also, the card amalgamates government benefits for the agricultural sector such as interest rate subvention, crop insurance under the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana, among others.

Also, 4.6 lakh rural customers were met under ‘Har Gaon Hamara’ programme in FY20 across 22,000 villages. In the next two-three years, the bank plans to cover around 8 lakh dairy farmers under its Milk-to-Money scheme.