Kotak picks Bajaj Finance ex-MD Saha to oversee consumer banking

Mumbai, Jan 12 (PTI) Kotak Mahindra Bank on Monday announced that Bajaj Finance's former managing director Anup Kumar Saha will oversee its consumer banking vertical.

Saha has been appointed as a whole-time director subject to regulatory approvals, and will be part of the private sector lender's senior management from Monday, an official statement said.

A finance industry veteran who has also worked at ICICI Bank, Saha spent over eight years at Bajaj Finance but quit the non-bank lender last year, a few months after his appointment as the MD.

The Kotak statement said Saha led business transformation, digital innovation and customer-focused strategies at Bajaj Finance, expanding the customer base to 100 million and diversifying the product portfolio.

At Kotak, he will oversee consumer banking, marketing and data analytics functions, the bank statement said.

"His extensive understanding of retail finance, data-driven growth and innovation will help us accelerate our strategy and deliver even greater value to our customers," the bank's managing director and chief executive Ashok Vaswani said.

Saha called Kotak a trusted and financial services conglomerate and added that he looks forward to working with the leadership team to build on this strong foundation, drive innovation, deepen customer relationships and create value for all stakeholders.

The Kotak scrip was trading 0.45 per cent down at Rs 2117.15 apiece on the BSE as against a 0.78 per cent fall on the benchmark. PTI AA HVA