Kotak Mahindra Bank Acquires StanC India's Personal Loan Book

Mumbai, Oct 18 (PTI) Kotak Mahindra Bank on Friday announced that it will be acquiring foreign lender Standard Chartered Bank's Rs 4,100-crore personal loan portfolio for an undisclosed sum.

The private sector bank will be picking up the entire quantum of the foreign lender's personal loans classified as “standard advances” and the transaction is expected to go through in three months, a statement said.

Terming it as a “high-quality loan book”, the statement from Kotak Mahindra Bank said the deal aligns with its strategy to “transform for scale and focus on customer-centric growth”.

The deal comes around two years after Stan C's peer Citi sold its entire retail business to Kotak's larger rival Axis Bank. in April, Kotak Mahindra Bank has been slapped with regulatory restrictions which disallow it from onboarding any customer through the online and mobile banking channels.

It also comes at a time when the regulator has been flagging risks on the unsecured loans like personal loans front and has also increased risk weights to dissuade lenders from growing the books.

Kotak Mahindra Bank closed 0.32 per cent up at Rs 1,869.80 a piece on the BSE on Friday, as against a 0.27 per cent gain on the benchmark.