Kotak-ING Vysya Bank Merger To Increase Reach: Uday Kotak

As the merger of ING Vysya Bank with Kotak Mahindra Bank was formally completed, Uday Kotak, executive vice-chairman and managing director Kotak Mahindra Bank said, the move would significantly increase the penetration for the bank.

"This gives us significant width and depth, we have just launched a campaign which we call as 'Kona Kona Kotak' which is really going deeper into India, serving customers and consumers across the length and breadth of the country and we see this merger as a very important stone to be able to reach out to customers offer a range of products which we can offer a much larger customer base," Mr Kotak said.

The new merged entity of 40,000-strong employees is excited to take up the challenge of integration and work towards building a "bigger, better, bolder Kotak" Mr Kotak said.

The Rs 15,000-crore merger, effective April 1, makes Kotak Mahindra Bank the fourth largest private sector lender in the country.

"I believe that so far we have just done the tail, the elephant is ahead of us because really got to integrate we have to create a very sustainable integrated financial institution and we will work towards transformation over time," he said. (Watch)

Following the merger, all the tangible and intangible assets have been transferred to Kotak Mahindra Bank. The merged entity has now 1,214 branches, with a wide-spread pan-India network.

ING Vysya had around 10,000 employees, while Kotak Bank has around 29,000.

RBI Rate Cut

Depending on how the monsoon pans out, and inflation data, the RBI or the Reserve Bank of India is expected to bring down the repo rate- the rate at which it lends short-term money to banks - to 7 per cent from 7.5 per cent currently, during the calendar year 2015, Mr Kotak said.

"My prediction for calendar 2015, current repo rate is 7.5 (per cent) depending on how the monsoon goes, how the inflation behaves I am of the view that the repo rate will be at 7 or 7.2 (per cent)," he said.

The RBI has cut its repo rate, at which it lends to the system, twice this year by a cumulative 0.50 per cent to 7.5 per cent.

Kotak Mahindra Bank on earlier this month joined its larger rivals and announced a 0.15 per cent cut in base rate to 9.85 per cent.