RBI nod to Dipak Gupta's appointment as Kotak Mahindra Bank interim CEO

Days after Uday Kotak stepped down as the chief executive officer of Kotak Mahindra Bank, the Reserve Bank of India on Friday gave its nod to the appointment of Dipak Gupta as the interim chief executive of the bank for a period of two months. In a regulatory filing, the country’s third largest private sector lender says "the Reserve Bank of India has, vide its letter dated September 7, 2023, approved the appointment of Mr Dipak Gupta as the interim Managing Director & CEO of Kotak Mahindra Bank Limited (“Bank”), for a period of two months, with effect from September 2, 2023."

The bank had earlier sought approval from RBI for the appointment of Gupta as the MD and CEO as an interim arrangement. Gupta has been serving as a full-time director of the bank since January 1999 and has been designated as the joint MD since January 1, 2022.

Gupta, who is a graduate in electronics engineering from IIT-Varanasi and a post-graduate in management from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIMA), has over three decades of experience in the financial services sector, nearly two and half decades of which had been with Kotak Group. "Gupta has played a key role in building various businesses for Kotak Mahindra Group. He was instrumental in forging the partnership between Kotak Mahindra Finance Ltd ("KMFL") and Ford Credit International." Gupta was also responsible for setting up the retail business following the conversion of KMFL into a bank and was responsible for leading the Kotak Group's initiatives in the banking arena, according to the bank. 

For the uninitiated, on September 2, Uday Kotak, who is the promoter and founder of Kotak Mahindra Bank, resigned as the CEO and MD of the bank, four months ahead of his retirement. In a hand-written resignation letter to Prakash Apte, chairman, board of directors, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Kotak said that he mulled over the decision of resignation for some time and believes this is the right thing for the institution. Kotak has served as the MD and CEO of Kotak Mahindra Bank since August 1, 2002. "He has played an important role in the institution’s growth over the past 38 years. Under Mr Kotak’s leadership, Kotak Mahindra group established a prominent presence in every area of financial services from stock broking, investment banking, car finance, life insurance and mutual funds," the bank said earlier.

With his resignation, Kotak has become a non-executive director of the bank. Kotak’s new term will be for five years, not liable to retire by rotation. 

In FY23, the bank logged a consolidated profit after tax (PAT) of ₹14,925 crore for the fiscal ended March 31, 2023, up 23% as compared to ₹12,089 crore in FY22. The net interest income (NII), the difference between interest revenues and interest expenses, increased 28% year-on-year (YoY) to ₹21,552 crore as compared to ₹16,818 crore in FY22.