‘ING Vysya will grow faster than the market’

Shailendra Bhandari, managing director and chief executive officer of ING Vysya Bank, wants to focus on the middle class and the high net-worth individuals (HNIs). He says most of these customers demand integrated services. And to offer just that, the bank has entered into a tie-up with Angel Broking, to provide customers a three-in-one account — for savings, demat and trading, all on a single platform. Bhandari tells DNA what the modern day customer expects from a bank. Excerpts:

What’s behind the Angel Broking tie-up, and are there any other plans on the anvil? What do customers expect today?
There are various types of customers and they change from big cities to small towns. It also depends on whether it is a mass customer or an HNI. As a bank, we focus on the middle-class and the HNI. What we have found is that if you look at these customers, their demographics are changing and most of them are quite young. These people are typically in their 20s and 30s and they are really busy. Since they have less time, they want all these products — insurance, mutual funds. So we consolidate them under all one roof. Though India is still at the early stages of this transformation, as compared with the foreign nations where we have seen these patterns, as ING Direct is the world’s largest online bank.

So the Indian retail customer will soon become like that of in other countries?
Probably not immediately. Maybe in Mumbai the middle class and upper-middle class will get their very soon. But if I look at a smaller town, the customers may not reach there straight away. And if I go to rural areas, they will take many more years to reach there.

What are your targets for the next year?
We normally do not give forward looking targets. But there is one simple statement which we are telling people — that we are focussed on quality growth and our aspiration is to grow faster than the market.

You took over as MD and CEO in August 2009. How has it been so far?
If I look at September 2010 and compare it with September 2009, I had said that we have an ambition to grow faster than the market. So in September 2010, we grew our gross advances by 25.17%, which was faster than the market. Deposits grew by 16%, which too was a little bit faster than the market. Within deposits, our current account-savings account (Casa) was growing around 27%, which again, is faster than market. Our Casa ratio went up sharply from 27% to 36%. Net interest margins moved up from 2.8% to 3.3%. Our percentage of net non-performing assets (NPAs), or bad loans, came down to 0.81% from 1.78%. Our NPA coverage went up from 39.8% to 72.75%. I would say that so far my journey has been comfortable. All this, thanks of course to the fact that the team had done lot of hard work before I came. So now I am taking all the credit for it.

Every banker dreams of launching an innovative product when they become the head. What plans do you have?
Banking is a very old industry. Eventually, banking is lending, borrowing and transactions. Even though we came up with the tie-up with Angel Broking, but it is not new in India. It is also not new for ING internationally, nor is it new globally. I do not think that in India I would be looking to create a product. But I think there are a lot of best practices which are present in India as well as in ING overseas. I think we can do a lot with the best practices and bring them here from overseas. A lot of it will depend upon what we have learned overseas. As I said, ING Direct is the world’s largest online bank. We do not plan to launch that version. But within ING Vysya, there are possibly some things which we can do. Similarly, there are also a lot of learnings from India. They may not necessarily be from ING Vysya, but from a lot of other banks in the subcontinent. We have seen the Grameen Bank model accepted overseas — the model gives inclusive growth and is a profitable model. Similarly, there are other models which have been successful in India and which could go overseas.