BUILDING A DIVERSIFIED financial services empire in India is no easy feat, especially for a first-generation entrepreneur. But Uday Kotak, 64, did just that. Starting with bill discounting in the mid-1980s, he transformed his company from a small player into the Kotak Mahindra Group, a financial behemoth. In nearly four decades, the group has amassed significant assets, loans, and market capitalisation, employing over 100,000 people. It boasts a diverse presence across financial segments, including banking, insurance, and wealth management. Kotak, who stepped down from an executive role in September last year and is the winner of the Lifetime Achievement Award in the BT-KPMG Best Banks and NBFCs Survey 2022-23, talks about challenges in the banking sector, corporate governance, and the bank that he built, in an interaction with Business Today. Edited excerpts:
Throughout your career, you have been involved in a host of financial services, including banking. What are the changes you have seen in this space?
The financial sector operates on two models: the saver and borrower model, which are banks and NBFCs; and the investor and issuer model, which includes markets, asset management, investments, and treasury. Customers change between
