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Banking is a long game, except when it is a one-day event.
Earlier this week, HDFC Bank’s chairman, Atanu Chakraborty, resigned, citing “differences over values and ethics” and referencing “certain happenings and practices” that he found unacceptable. This is a very efficient kind of disclosure. It contains no facts, but a lot of implications.
That is the sort of phrase that lands like a riddle and trades like a warning.
The market, being less patient with ambiguity, decided to have the conversation anyway. The stock fell sharply, wiping out tens of thousands of crores in value in a single session. Which is interesting, because nothing measurable about the bank’s balance sheet changed that day. What changed was something softer and, in banking, arguably more important: confidence in the people running it.
If this feels like an overreaction, consider a different kind of problem.
A few months ago, IDFC First Bank disclosed a roughly Rs 600-crore fraud involving government accounts. This one had details: forged cheques, collusion, and unauthorised withdrawals. You can point to the line items and say, “That is the problem.”
One of these events sits at the board level. The other sits inside a branch.
But together, they point to the same thing: banking is not just about balance sheets. It is about the judgment of how decisions are made, how risks are managed, and how those systems behave under pressure.
Which is why, over the years, we’ve kept coming back to a simple question: what really makes a bank work? The answer, more often than not, lies with the people running it.
What happens after a legendary banker leaves
For years, HDFC Bank’s story was inseparable from Aditya Puri. He built the institution into what it is today. Disciplined and mostly consistent. Which is why what he did after leaving the bank was just as interesting.
Instead of staying within finance, Puri turned to healthcare and pharma, backing ventures in diagnostics and specialty medicine, alongside a familiar network of industry veterans.
On the surface, it looked like a big change. But it wasn’t that different.
The same playbook of capital allocation, network-building, and operational discipline was simply being applied to a new sector. The bet was that healthcare, like banking, is ultimately about trust, scale, and execution.
Which raises a question in hindsight. If an institution is shaped so strongly by one individual, how much of that stability belongs to the system, and how much of it belongs to the person who built it?
Health is wealth as Aditya Puri shifts focus from banking to pharma
After 26 years building HDFC Bank into India’s largest private bank, Aditya Puri has now turned his gaze (and riches) to pharma and healthcare. From IPO-bound Pharmeasy to Strides Group, can Puri’s Midas touch go beyond banking?
The retail bet that keeps getting interrupted
IDFC First Bank has spent years trying to rewrite itself. It inherited a complex book, with exposure to the likes of IL&FS, DHFL, and telecom companies. And it had been pivoting to retail lending under V. Vaidyanathan. The logic is sound: retail loans bring higher spreads and more stability. But transitions in banking are never clean.
Just as the bank was trying to prove the model works, a Rs 590-crore fraud at a single Chandigarh branch exposed how fragile execution can be. The issue involved forged cheques, collusion, and unauthorised withdrawals from government-linked accounts.
IDFC First’s retail lending road to redemption
When IDFC First was born out of the merger of IDFC Bank and an NBFC, it inherited the former’s problems—including bad loans to the likes of DHFL, Vi, and Reliance Capital. As it seeks to build an identity of its own, it must first reckon with these legacy issues
The banker who fixed a bank by not fixing it
When RBL Bank brought in R. Subramaniakumar, it was mainly looking for stability. The bank had been under the RBI’s scanner, weighed down by bad loans and a credibility problem. The instinct in such situations is to launch a turnaround playbook of new strategy, new products, and a new narrative.
Subramaniakumar did something else by diversifying the loan book, leaning into branches, and focussing on fixing the plumbing. It worked as profits hit record highs.
But the costs showed up elsewhere. A branch-heavy model pushed up employee and operating expenses, dragging down operating profitability. And while attrition fell and new products gained traction, the bank still hadn’t fully cracked its cheapest source of capital: deposits.
In banking, fixing one problem often creates another.
The CEO fixing a troubled bank by doing nothing new
R Subramaniakumar, the turnaround man with four decades of experience, has tackled immediate risks in his first year as RBL Bank chief by betting on branches. That has consequences, though
Selling a turnaround
At Axis Bank, Amitabh Chaudhry inherited a different kind of problem: a bank that needed to be fixed, and a workforce that needed to believe it could be. His approach wasn’t as much operational as it was psychological.
He stabilised the business, yes. But just as importantly, he ran a full-blown internal persuasion campaign. Aligning employees, rebuilding confidence among them, and selling a sense of direction. The market rewarded the turnaround.
But inside the bank, the story was different. Employees were leaving and customer complaints lingered. The fix was working, but not evenly. Perception, after all, is part of performance.
Amitabh Chaudhry launches charm offensive at Axis Bank—and employees are buying it
Talked about for its cutthroat culture and high attrition, Axis Bank’s chief executive wants to switch things up in his third term
When “people-first” costs people
At ICICI Bank, Sandeep Bakhshi took over after one of the most turbulent periods in the bank’s history. His mandate was to stabilise the institution and fix the culture. He did both. The bank became calmer, more predictable, and disciplined. But that came with a cost.
The new HR policies, designed to reduce volatility and improve retention, ended up pushing out ambitious, high-performing employees who no longer felt adequately incentivised. Attrition overall fell, but the composition changed.
The bank got stability; it may have lost some edge.
At ICICI Bank, Sandeep Bakhshi’s people-first strategy costs top people
The CEO’s HR-strategy revamp sparks a mid-management frenzy, triggering an exodus of top talent
A CEO on a timer
At Indusind Bank, leadership came with a deadline.
When Sumant Kathpalia took over, investor confidence in private lenders was already fragile. His tenure saw strong growth in loans and profits, but also rising concerns—high deposit costs, bad loans, and questions around his experience in certain segments.
Then came the real constraint: the RBI shortened his term. Which turned the job into a test. Convince the regulator and restore confidence… or step aside.
In banking, sometimes strategy isn’t as much the constraint as time is.
Indusind CEO’s 400-day test: win RBI over or retire
In four years, Sumant Kathpalia has wowed investors to take the bank’s market cap to $14 billion. Now he needs to do the same with the central bank to extend his stint
You can take the banker out of the bank
Arundhati Bhattacharya’s move from SBI to Salesforce showed how banking leadership translates surprisingly well into tech, until it doesn’t. She brought credibility and relationships, even pulling in large banks into Salesforce’s ecosystem.
But the company also faced an attrition crisis, with senior leaders leaving and execution becoming harder. Leadership travels but culture doesn’t always follow.
From SBI to Salesforce: Arundhati Bhattacharya’s unlikely SaaS voyage
Arundhati Bhattacharya spearheaded the digital transformation for India’s largest public sector bank, SBI. She’s now trying to pull off an audacious US$1 billion revenue dream for Salesforce India
That’s a wrap for this week. Write to [email protected] with your thoughts and suggestions, or leave a comment on our web or app.
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