EXECUTIVE SUMMARY.
“hush money”: money paid to someone to prevent them from disclosing embarrassing or discreditable information – Concise Oxford English Dictionary
HDFC Bank, India’s most valuable bank, has been found to be levying ‘processing fees’ on prospective retail customers who submitted spurious documents for availing a loan from the...
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY. While Axis Bank has recovered from its corporate non-performing asset (NPA) crisis, it seems to be in the midst of a management attrition problem, partly explained by significant sackings in FY2020. Staff turnover levels have been steadily rising in the period FY2018 – FY2020 (FY2021 data is...
By
Hemindra Hazari
Even in a season of corporate misgovernance, scams and lack of any CEO-level and board-level accountability, a new leviathan of misgovernance threatens to dwarf the rest.
Emerging from the murky depths – where it seems to have flourished, largely unreported on by the media, financial analysts and even the...
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY. Two long serving senior executives of HDFC Bank who headed important business verticals have abruptly quit the bank, reportedly under unusual circumstances. Abhay Aima (Group Head – Private Banking), quit sometime in FY2020, while Ashok Khanna (Group Head – Secured Vehicle Loans) left in early FY2021. Aima,...
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY. On September 13, 2019, a court in Udaipur, Rajasthan took cognisance of charges and issued bailable warrants against Sandeep Bakhshi, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), ICICI Bank and other officials of ICICI Prudential Life Insurance (ICICI Pru Life) for criminal conduct under the Indian Penal Code, 1860...
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY. Recently, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) was forced to disclose its confidential inspection reports, called Risk Assessment Reports (RARs), of the State Bank of India (SBI), HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank and Axis Bank for the years FY2013 to FY2015. Shockingly, among the four banks, HDFC Bank...
On May 12, 2017, Yes Bank, released its annual report for the year ended March 31, 2017 where the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) mandatory disclosure showed that for the year ended March 31, 2016, the bank’s gross non-performing assets (NPAs) was higher by 5.6x to Rs49.3bn instead of...
Three new developments herald a possible new beginning for Paytm Payments Bank (PPB): The reconstitution of its board of directors, apparently due to pressure from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI); the stepping down of Vijay Shekhar Sharma (51% shareholder of PPB) as part-time chairman and the induction of...
By Hemindra Hazari
Even on their best days, India’s financial newspapers are watchdogs that rarely bark. For the most part, they prefer not to place large companies under the scanner, let alone try and fix accountability on influential promoters and powerful chief executive officers.
On March 20, 2019, Business Standard (BS) announced that...
