About
Axis Bank Ltd
Axis Bank Limited is the third largest private sector bank in India. The Bank offers the entire spectrum of financial services to customer segments covering Large and Mid-Corporate, MSMEs, Agriculture and retail businesses. It provides a complete suite of banking and financial services including retail banking, wholesale banking and treasury operations. The Bank is primarily governed by the Banking Regulation Act, 1949. As on 31 March 2023, the Bank has overseas branches at Singapore, DIFC - Dubai and an Offshore Banking Unit at the International Financial Service Centre (IFSC), Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT City), Gandhinagar, India.
The Bank operates in four segments, namely treasury, retail banking, corporate/ wholesale banking and other banking business. The treasury operations include investments in sovereign and corporate debt, equity and mutual funds, trading operations, derivative trading and foreign exchange operations on the account, and for customers and central funding. Retail banking includes lending to individuals/small businesses subject to the orientation, product and granularity criterion. It also includes liability products, card services, Internet banking, automated teller machines (ATM) services, depository, financial advisory services, and non resident Indian (NRI) services. The corporate/wholesale banking segment includes corporate relationships not included under retail banking, corporate advisory services, placements and syndication, management of publics issue, project appraisals, capital market related services, and cash management services.
The Bank had a network of 4586 branches at the end of December 2020 across the country.
With 4528 domestic branches (including extension counters) and 12044 ATMs and 5433 cash recyclers across the country as on 31 March 2020, the network of Axis Bank spreads across 2,033 cities and towns, enabling the bank to reach out to a large cross-section of customers with an array of products and services. The bank also has nine overseas offices with branches at Singapore, Hong Kong, Dubai (at the DIFC), Shanghai and Colombo; representative offices at Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Dhaka and an overseas subsidiary at London, UK.
The Bank has five wholly-owned subsidiaries namely Axis Securities and Sales Ltd, Axis Private Equity Ltd, Axis Trustee Services Ltd, Axis Asset Management Company Ltd and Axis Mutual Fund Trustee Ltd.
Axis Bank was incorporated in the year 1993 with the name UTI Bank Ltd. Axis Bank is one of the first new generation private sector banks to have begun operations in 1994. The bank was promoted in 1993, jointly by Specified Undertaking of Unit Trust of India (SUUTI) (then known as Unit Trust of India), Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC), General Insurance Corporation of India (GIC), National Insurance Company Ltd., The New India Assurance Company Ltd., The Oriental Insurance Company Ltd. and United India Insurance Company Ltd. The share holding of Unit Trust of India was subsequently transferred to SUUTI, an entity established in 2003.
In the year 2001, the bank along with Global Trust Bank (GTB) had a merger proposal to create the largest private sector bank, but due to media's issues both the banks withdraw the merger proposal.
In the year 2003, the Bank was given the authorized to handle Government transactions such as collection of Government taxes, to handle the expenditure related payments of Central Government Ministries and Departments and pension payments on behalf of Civil and Non-civil Ministries such as defence, posts, telecom and railways. In December 20003, the Bank launched their merchant acquiring business.
In the year 2005, the Bank raised $239.3 million through Global Depositary Receipts. They won the award 'Outstanding Achievement Award' for the year 2005 from Indian Banks Association for IT Infrastructure, delivery capabilities and innovative solutions.
In December 2005, the Bank set up Axis Securities and Sales Ltd (originally incorporated as UBL Sales Ltd) to market credit cards and retail asset products. In October 2006, they set up Axis Private Equity Ltd, primarily to carry on the activities of managing equity investments and provide venture capital support to businesses.
In the year of 2007, the bank again raised $218.67 million through Global Depository Receipts. They opened 153 new branches during the year, which includes 43 extension counters that have been upgraded to branches and 8 Service branches/ CPCs. They also opened new overseas offices at Singapore, Dubai and Hong Kong and a representative office in Shanghai.
During the year 2007-08, the Bank opened 143 new branches, taking the number of branches to 651 which included 33 extension counters that have been upgraded to branches. Also, they expanded overseas with the opening of a branch at the Dubai International Finance Centre. The Bank changed their name from UTI Bank Ltd to Axis Bank Ltd with effect from July 30, 2007 to avoid confusion with other unrelated entities with similar name.
During the year 2008-09, the Bank opened 176 new branches that include 12 extension counters that have been upgraded to branches taking the total number of branches and ECs to 835. During the year, they opened 831 ATMs, thereby taking the ATM network of the Bank from 2,764 to 3,595. Also, they opened a Representative Office in Dubai.
In May 2008, the Bank established Axis Trustee Services Company Ltd as a wholly owned subsidiary company, which is engaged in trusteeship activities. In December 2008, they launched their new investment advisory service exclusively for High Net Worth clients.
In January 2009, the Bank set up Axis Asset Management Company Ltd to carry on the activities of managing a mutual fund business. Also, they incorporated Axis Mutual Fund Trustee Ltd to act as the trustee for the mutual fund business.
During the year 2009-10, the Bank opened 200 branches taking the total number of branches Extension Counters (ECs) to 1,035. In March 209, 2010, they opened their 1000 branch at Bandra West, Mumbai. In September 2009, Axis Bank launched the private banking business in the domestic market, christened 'Privee' to cater to highly affluent individuals and families offering them unique investment opportunities
During the year, the Capital Markets SBU was restructured with the debt capital market business (hitherto a part of the capital markets) carved into a separate vertical. As a result, the Bank's Capital Markets SBU comprises equity capital markets (ECM) business, mergers and acquisitions and private equity syndication. In February 24, 2010, the Bank launched the 'AXIS CALL & PAY on atom', a unique mobile payments solution using Axis Bank debit cards. Axis Bank is the first bank in the country to provide a secure debit card-based payment service over IVR.
During the year 2010-11, 407 new branches were added to the Bank's network taking the total number of branches and extension counters (ECs) to 1,390. Of these, 564 branches/ ECs are in semi-urban and rural areas and 826 branches/ECs are in metropolitan and urban areas. The Bank is present in all states and Union Territories (except Lakshadweep) covering 921 centres. The ATM network of the Bank increased from 4,293 to 6,270.
During the year, the Bank also opened a Representative Office in Abu Dhabi. This was in addition to the existing branches at Singapore, Hong Kong and DIFC (Dubai International Financial Centre) and representative offices at Shanghai and Dubai.
In March 7, 2011, the Bank incorporated a new subsidiary namely Axis U.K. Ltd. as a private limited company registered in the United Kingdom (UK) with the main purpose of filing an application with Financial Services Authority (FSA), UK for a banking license in the UK and for the creation of necessary infrastructure for the subsidiary to commence banking business in the UK.
On 8 January 2014, Axis Bank announced the opening of its Shanghai Branch, thus becoming the first Indian private sector bank to set up a branch in China.
On 4 December 2014, Axis Bank announced that it had closed its Senior Unsecured Redeemable Non-Convertible Debenture issue of amount Rs 5705 crore and priced at 8.85% p.a. payable annually maturing on 5 December 2024.
On 9 December 2014, Axis Bank announced the launch of limited period offer of 20 year fixed rate home loan for affordable housing at 10.40%.
On 27 July 2015, Axis Bank announced that it had signed a $200 million 7 year bilateral loan deal with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) for extending affordable agriculture credit to farmers in India.
On 22 November 2015, Axis Bank announced the opening of its Representative Office in Dhaka, Bangladesh in a bid to strengthen its international presence.
On 9 March 2016, Axis Bank announced the launch of the world's first Forex prepaid card issued in conjunction with Diners Club International, a business unit of Discover Financial Services.
On 30 March 2017, Axis Bank announced a strategic partnership with Wells Fargo & Company to offer seamless remittance facility to their NRI customers from The United States of America (USA).
On 17 June 2017, Axis Bank in association with Kochi Metro Rail Corporation (KMRL) launched India's first single-wallet contactless, open loop metro card to allow cashless commuting for commuters in Kochi.
On 5 July 2017, Axis Bank announced its foray into the luxury bikes loans segment for 500cc & above bikes.
On 11 July 2017, Axis Bank announced its collaboration with Inter-American Investment Corporation (IIC) to facilitate trade with Latin America and the Caribbean.
Axis Bank on 27 July 2017 announced that it has entered into an agreement with Jasper Infotech Private Limited to acquire 100% stake in its subsidiaries viz. FreeCharge Payment Technologies Private Limited and Accelyst Solutions Private Limited, which together constitute the digital payments business under the 'FreeCharge' brand. The deal marked the first such acquisition of a digital payments company by a bank in India.
The bank had a network of 3703 branches and 13814 ATMs & cash deposit machines as at 31 March 2018 across the country.The bank has raised Rs 8680 crore of capital from a consortium of investors (Bain Capital,Life Insurance Corporation of India and other marquee investors).
As on 31 March 2019, Bank had a network of 4050 branches,11801 ATMs and 4917 cash deposit machines across the country.
During the year 2019-20, the Bank raised additional equity capital through issue and allotment of 19,87,28,139 equity shares of Rs. 2/- each of the Bank, pursuant to a Qualified Institutional Placement Issue.
As on 31 March, 2020, Bank had a network of over 4,500 branches and over 17,477 ATMs & cash deposit machines. It opened 478 branches to its network during fiscal 2020.
As on 31 March, 2021, Bank had a network of 4,594 branches and over 11,300 ATMs & cash deposit machines. It added 66 branches to its network during fiscal 2021.
During the year 2020-21, the Bank raised additional equity capital through issue and allotment of 23,80,38,560 equity shares of Rs. 2/- each of the Bank on 11 August, 2020, pursuant to a Qualified Institutional Placement Issue.
As on 31 March, 2021, the Bank has the following 9 unlisted subsidiary companies and 1 step down subsidiary.
On 27 March, 2018, the Board of Directors of ASPL and FCPTL had approved a Scheme for Amalgamation of ASPL into and with FCPTL. ASPL and FCPTL filed final petition for approval of said merger before the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT). The appointed date for amalgamation is 7 October, 2017 and the effect of said merger was to be given on this date or any other date as may be prescribed by NCLT. Subsequent to final hearing in matter conducted during the year, FCPTL received copy of the Order approved by NCLT, Delhi and the same was filed with the Ministry of Company Affairs, in November 2019. However, in the case of ASPL, NCLT, Mumbai amended the appointed date of amalgamation from 7 October, 2017 to 1 April, 2018. The NCLT, Delhi had already approved scheme of said Merger on October 22, 2019, which will be effective from the date of filing of certified copy of the Order of NCLAT with Registrar of Companies.
During year 2020-21, Axis Private Equity Limited was merged with Axis Finance Limited. The Scheme of Merger with Axis Finance Limited got approved by NCLT, Mumbai on 23 July, 2020 and approval of the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) was received on 2 September, 2020. The Bank sold 100% stake in its subsidiary, Axis Bank UK Limited to OpenPayd Holdings Limited, United Kingdom by signing a Share Purchase Agreement on 31 March, 2021.
As on 31 March, 2022, the Bank has 9 unlisted subsidiary companies, 1 step down subsidiary and 1 associate company.
As on 31 March, 2022, Bank had a network of 4,758 branches and 10,990 ATMs & cash deposit machines. During the year 2022, Bank added 164 branches to its network.
As on 31 March, 2022, the Bank has overseas branches at Singapore, DIFC - Dubai and an Offshore Banking Unit at the International Financial Service Centre (IFSC), Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT City), Gandhinagar, India.
During fiscal 2022, five promoters of the Bank viz. The United India Insurance Company Limited, National Insurance Company Limited, The New India Assurance Company Limited, General Insurance Corporation of India and The Oriental Insurance Company Limited had been reclassified from 'Promoter' Category to 'Public' Category in terms of Regulation 31A SEBI Listing Regulations. Accordingly, as on date, the Bank has two promoters i.e. Administrator of the Specified Undertaking of Unit Trust of India and Life Insurance Corporation of India.
As on 31 March, 2023, Bank had a network of 4,903 branches and 15,953 ATMs & cash deposit machines. During the year 2022-23, Bank added 145 branches to its network.
During year 2022-23, Bank acquired on going concern basis, the business assets and business liabilities of Citibank's India Consumer Business from Citibank N. A.(CBNA) and the NBFC Consumer Business from Citicorp Finance (India) Limited (CFIL) collectively referred to as Citibank India Consumer Business, without assigning values to individual assets and liabilities effective from 01 March, 2023.
Axis Bank Ltd
Chairman Speech
Winning Together
Dear Shareholders,
With our ‘dii se open' approach to serving the needs and aspirations of our
customers, we at Axis Bank believe that we will win when our customers and stakeholders
win.
‘Open' has been the driving force behind our GPS journey. We have now created a
strong platform with multiplicative forces through our One Axis approach along with the
unification of digital platforms, partnerships and transformational projects to win across
businesses.
The fiscal 2023 has been a historic year in our GPS journey as we made remarkable
strides towards our ambition of attaining the leadership position in India's banking
space.
We delivered a solid performance as we lifted the growth momentum with meaningful
upward shift in profitability, led by market share gains and several other accomplishments
through the year.
We witnessed strong growth across our focus segments, completed successful acquisition
of Citibank India Consumer Business and retained our leadership position in specific
businesses like payments, wealth management and Digital.
Our steady progress towards delivering distinctiveness in our chosen areas namely
Customer Obsession, Bharat Banking, Digital Bank and ‘One Axis' has further provided
us agility, innovation and synergies to win across business segments.
Our consolidated ROE (excluding exceptional items) for the fiscal 2023 was 18.84% led
by all round outperformance across NIMs, fees, costs and asset quality metrics. We
delivered growth of 68% in Profit After Tax (excluding exceptional items) on the back of
30% growth in net interest income and 25% growth in fee income. Our NIMs for the entire
year improved by 55 bps y-o-y to 4.02%, while the credit costs declined by 32 bps y-o-y to
0.40%. Our organic businesses net accreted 69 bps of CET 1 (excluding exceptional items)
in fiscal 2023 as compared to net consumption of 176 bps in previous five years. These
metrics provide us confidence to carry this momentum ahead as we continue to focus on the
three core areas of execution:
• Deepening a performance- driven culture.
• Strengthened the balance sheet and organisational core significantly.
• Building for the future with relentless focus on driving distinctiveness.
Improved Growth Metrics Led by a Performance-driven Culture
We accelerated the growth momentum in fiscal 2023 led by continued executional
excellence and transformation across various businesses of the Bank while setting new
benchmarks in our focus areas to deliver improvement in key operating metrics.
During the fiscal, we witnessed strong growth in deposits and advances led by our focus
on improving quality and granularity across businesses. Our granular CASA deposits grew
21% y-o-y. On advances, we continued to grow faster than the industry with domestic loan
book growth of 23% y-o-y. Our focus segments comprising Mid Corporate, SME and Small
Business Banking (SBB), grew at a much higher pace of 32% y-o-y and now constitute 20% of
overall loan book.
Strong growth momentum in Retail across our businesses
The Retail franchise delivered strong growth led by improvement in the quality of our
deposits and higher market share across our key businesses. We delivered several all-time
yearly highs as we added 10.8 million new liability relationships and achieved record loan
disbursements across the retail and rural segments.
Our focus on building a quality and granular liability franchise continued to progress
well with 870 bps y-o-y increase in the share of premium segment in Retail SA deposits
portfolio and 550 bps y-o-y reduction in the overall deposits' outflow rates.
Our wealth management business ‘Burgundy' continues to be among the largest in
India with combined assets under management of H3.6 trillion and 30 of the top 100 richest
Indians as our Burgundy Private clients.
Our well-diversified retail advances book grew 22% with higher growth in focus segments
with SBB (50% y-o-y) and Rural (26% y-o-y), aided by several large transformation and
technology initiatives. We also strengthened our market share in retail cards and payments
businesses led by our innovative product propositions and partnerships led KTB (Known to
Bank) strategy. We witnessed strong growth momentum across key metrics with all time high
issuances of 4.2 million new credit cards, 63% y-o-y growth in card spends and 97% y-o-y
growth in card advances.
The acquisition of Citibank India Consumer Business to accelerate our journey of
creating a premier retail franchise
Our positioning in the credit cards business has strengthened with our card advances
market share improving by 450 bps to 16.3% led by the acquisition of a quality and
complementary credit card franchise. Our liability franchise received a boost with over
100 bps improvement in CASA ratio and access to over 1,600 Suvidha corporate
relationships.
In wealth management business, we gained highly affluent Wealth customer base that
would further accelerate our growth ambitions.
The integration of Citibank India Consumer Business remains well on track with ~3,200
Citi employees now integrated into the Axis organisation structure. Early traction from
the Citibank customer base has been quite positive. Our interactions with several
high-value customers suggest their acknowledgment of the seamless transition, continuation
of highest levels of service, access to Axis Bank's extensive network of branches, and
wide product portfolio under the One Axis umbrella. We have already started incremental
onboarding of erstwhile ‘Suvidha' salary accounts on Axis Bank platform for
additional locations across the country where Citi was hitherto not present.
While the acquired Citi business being entirely retail runs at a higher cost, it comes
with higher return ratios and is ROE accretive post integration. It does not impede our
ability to deliver our aspirational ROE. We have identified 60+ synergy initiatives across
the Bank as we look to drive revenue and cost benefits. We believe that this integration
between two highly complementary institutions will enable us to create the gold standard
in the retail space.
Reinforced our proposition as a relationship-led sustainable and profitable Wholesale
Bank
We have the best and most comprehensive Wholesale Banking franchise today. Our
strategic focus in this segment has been to deliver relationship RAROC focused growth
leveraging our ‘One Axis' and Digital capabilities to provide holistic banking
solutions to corporates. We stepped up growth across the coverage segments in fiscal 2023
with domestic corporate loan book up 24% y-o-y.
MSME segment continues to remain a key growth driver for the Bank.
The combined loan portfolio of Mid Corporate and SME has doubled in the last three
years, with 1,100 bps improvement in contribution to overall Wholesale book, thereby
bringing higher granularity and aiding the PSL agenda of the Bank.
We continued to engage with our corporate client across their capital structure to be
their ‘transaction Bank of choice'. We won significant mandates across the
transaction banking segments led by our technology-led solutions that resulted in the
transaction banking, forex and trade related fees contributing 78% to overall Wholesale
Banking fees. We strengthened our leadership positioning across products with market share
of ~31% in IMPS, 20% in Bharat Bill Payment ecosystem and 11% in foreign LC. We also
improved our positioning in NEFT from 4th to 2nd rank with market
share of 11% in fiscal 2023.
Our key group entities delivered significant value led by ‘One Axis' strategy
We have over the last four years scaled up the businesses across our subsidiaries
significantly led by our ‘One Axis' strategy. The domestic subsidiaries delivered yet
another year of good performance with total profits of Rs.1,304 crores and contributed 46
bps to the Bank's consolidated ROE (excluding exceptional items) of 18.84%.
Axis Finance, our full-service customer- focused NBFC franchise delivered 30% y-o-y
growth in net profit with ROE of 16.9%, healthy capital adequacy ratio of over 20% and
superior asset quality. Axis AMC delivered PAT growth of 16% y-o-y, while our retail
brokerage subsidiary delivered PAT of H203 crores in a volatile market environment.
Axis Capital continued to maintain its dominance in equity capital markets.
We continued to focus on offering holistic investment and financial solutions to our
customers as we added retirement solutions with the launch of Axis Pension Fund during the
year.
Freecharge remains among the major fintechs in India with strong growth in Payments and
Merchant Business and scale up in lending products segment. Our digital invoice
discounting platform ‘Invoicemart' continues to set new benchmark as it facilitated
financing of MSME invoices of more than H55,600 crores since its inception in 2017.
Max Life Insurance, India's fourth largest insurance company where we are a
co-promoter, also delivered strong performance with expansion in margins and 28% y-o-y
growth in Value of New Business (VNB). We remain committed to the long-term association
with Max Life as its promoter and bancassurance partner. With the far-reaching regulatory
changes in insurance sector of late and the significant long term growth aspects, we
believe that Max Life offers enhanced value creation opportunities for us.
The oversight on Bank's subsidiaries remains an essential element of our ‘One
Axis' strategy. We have taken several initiatives to strengthen our well-established and
integrated Subsidiaries Governance framework under the supervision of the Subsidiary
Management Committee (SMC). We also realigned and strengthened the leadership teams across
our capital markets facing subsidiaries during the year to drive our next phase of growth.
Fostering a winning mindset
Our wining mindset is reflected in multiple external recognitions that the Bank
received for its performance.
The Bank was adjudged #1 on the Quality Index for both Large Corporate and Middle
Market Banking in the Greenwich Banking Survey for the second year in a row. The Bank's
project NEO that signifies our aspiration to become the leading Digital Wholesale Bank in
India, received several accolades including the ‘Best BFSI Customer Experience award'
for NEO API Banking Suite, ‘Best BFSI MSME Support award' for NEO Connect at the
prestigious Dun & Bradstreet BFSI & Fintech Summit 2023 and the Asset Triple A
Digital Award.
The various awards won by the Bank during the year including ‘Data Engineering
Excellence award' at Cypher 2022 for our personalisation project, ‘The Retail
Banker's International Asia Trailblazer award' for trailblazing use of AI and Machine
Learning in Financial Services space and Economic Times DataCon award for ‘Modern and
Agile Data Architecture and Infrastructure' further validated our leadership position in
new- age technologies.
I am also pleased to share that we were ranked in the Top 10 of the Kincentric Best
Employers in India survey and we were certified a ‘Great Place to Work' for the
second consecutive year. These external recognitions reflect the positive culture change
in the Bank and the investments we have made in our people and technology.
Strengthened the Balance Sheet and Core Significantly Built a strong balance sheet with
self-sustaining capital structure
Our balance sheet remains resilient with healthy capital position and best- in-class
asset quality metrics. During the year, we increased our provision coverage ratio by 600
bps to 81% while maintaining significant additional non NPA provisioning buffers of over
H11,900 crores, that translated to standard asset coverage ratio of 1.42%, among the
highest in the industry. The Bank's asset quality too remains among the best-in-class with
net NPA declining further by 34 bps to 0.39%. The Bank has also maintained amongst the
lowest standard COVID-19 restructuring portfolios that stood at 0.22% of Bank's gross
customer assets.
The Bank's self-sustaining capital structure with overall capital adequacy ratio at
17.64% and CET 1 ratio of 14.02% ensures that we are well capitalised to drive our growth
ambitions.
Building next-generation technology architecture
In a rapidly evolving financial landscape, technology and product innovation with
‘openness and agility' to adapt to evolving customer needs remain critical to achieve
success.
In the last three years, our IT team strength has more than doubled with over 2.5x
increase in total technology spends, as we continue to focus on building critical
capabilities and best-inclass resilience across our business operations.
We have been a leader in cloud adoption with our multi cloud-first strategy and
cloud-native micro services-based architecture that has helped us to deploy over 75
initiatives on cloud. We have also accelerated the delivery across businesses by investing
in emerging technologies with creation of nearly 3,000 RPA bots and 1,480+ automated
processes.
Our investments in new-age data science and engineering platforms like Big Data Lake,
Micro Services-based Architecture, etc. continue to deliver value as we have now deployed
100+ diverse use cases in 10+ business domains to make data-driven business decisions. We
continue to leverage our strength in Data Analytics to further drive distinctiveness in
customer experience, as we took personalisation to next level with 10,000+ hyper-
personalised nudges across 2,500+ customer features. Our initiative on universal
underwriting where our goal is to provide credit access for every eligible Indian
leveraging alternate data, continues to scale up well. We also improved our BitSight
rating, a key risk indicator of overall cybersecurity to 800 from 770 last year,
highlighting our strong focus on risk and governance.
Organisation-wide transformation projects have accelerated our GPS journey
The multiple large-scale transformation projects that we have been running across the
Bank have started yielding positive outcomes across the key businesses.
Project 'Triumph' has been instrumental in improving the productivity of liability
sales channel and improving the quality of deposits with 870 bps increase in share of
premium segment in Retail SA balances. On the retail assets side, projects like 'Unnati'
and 'SBB Sankalp' have been instrumental in improving TAT and driving higher growth,
respectively. On the payments side, the projects 'Zenith' and 'Kanban' have helped to
improve our market positioning in cards and merchant acquiring businesses.
We have also made strong progress in Project NEO towards our ambition of building a
world class Digital Wholesale Bank. Our path-breaking digital banking platform NEO
witnessed strong adoption from corporates with 1,000+ client engagements since its launch.
Our marketleading transaction banking API suite and best-in-class corporate developer
portal offers a strong product market fit that resulted in 3x y-o-y growth in transaction
volumes.
Building a Future-ready Organisation
Digital continues to be an area of relentless focus for us
Our 'Axis Mobile' app today is the world's highest rated app at scale with 4.8 rating
on Google Play Store and nearly 2 million+ reviews. It also serves as the largest branch
for the Bank with over 20 million customer registrations, ~12 million monthly active
users, 250+ services and over 67% of the service requests serviced digitally.
Axis 2.0, our end-to-end digital business unit, is now operating at scale with over 20
products across liabilities, loans, investment products, insurance and forex accounting
for 15% to 85% of incremental sales for these products.
It also contributed to our customer obsession journey with Net Promoter Scores (NPS)
for Axis 2.0 products being 10-30 percentage points higher than their physical
equivalents.
Our API (Application Programming Interfaces) Developer Portal, that has been the 1st
in industry to facilitate simplified end-to-end digital developer onboarding journeys, now
boasts of strong and wide suite of over 400 open APIs for Retail, Wholesale and Connected
banking solutions. The Bank now has 95+ strategic partnerships in the digital space
offering true end-to-end digital experience to customers across the spectrum.
In the current integrated environment, Account Aggregator (AA) ecosystem and Open
Credit Enablement Network (OCEN) are likely to make significant impact in digital lending
to underpenetrated segments across Retail and MSME. We were the first Bank to launch
digital lending through AA framework in fiscal 2022 and have since scaled our AA-linked
business significantly.
Bank-wide programmes to build distinctiveness
We continue to invest in technologies to empower our employees to increase their
productivity and drive customer delight.
Our multiyear distinctiveness programme 'Sparsh' continues to progress in the right
direction as we strive to become India's most customer-obsessed Bank. Several initiatives
taken across the Bank through combined approach of embedding critical behaviours and
building institutional capabilities through Personalisation and Digital, have resulted in
upto 33% improvement in our Net Promoter Scores across the Retail and Wholesale Bank. This
is a multi-year journey and we will continue to invest with the aim to cover the entire
Bank in this Financial Year.
During the year, we went live with 'Siddhi' - a super app that's built on modern tech
stack with cloud native development integrates 35+ backend systems to empower our
colleagues to engage more meaningfully with customers and offer them instant solutions.
This is a multiyear journey, and our vision of Siddhi app is to actually personalise it
for every employee of the Bank.
Our distinctiveness initiative around Bharat Banking continues to make strong progress.
Multiple macro factors including improvement in physical and digital infrastructure,
evolution of the technology stack, efficient delivery of various government schemes in the
retail and MSME space, etc. have provided strong tailwinds to the Rural and Semi Urban
(RuSu) or 'Bharat' markets.
We scaled up the distribution footprint in this segment to 2,137 branches complemented
by a large CSC (Common Services Centres) network of 60,600+ VLEs (Village Level
Entrepreneurs) that grew 50% y-o-y. We also collaborated with marquee rural-focused
customer and fintech players, launched eKYC based CASA platform through partnership
ecosystem and went live with five partners on digital co-lending platforms to further
penetrate rural supply chains and access new customer segments.
As a result of our focused initiatives across products, processes and partnerships, we
achieved the highest ever yearly disbursements, 26% growth in rural advances and a 15%
y-o-y growth in deposits from 'Bharat' branches. The growth has been across all the major
product lines backed by improving margins, PSL asset accretion and lower credit cost. We
are confident of continuing the growth momentum and creating distinctiveness in Bharat
markets.
Our deep-rooted organisation culture and ESG-aligned commitments continue to get
external recognition
We also remain fully committed to strengthen and enhance the Risk and Compliance
culture of the Bank in order to build long-term sustainability and trust with our
customers and other stakeholders.
We have redefined conventional workplace practices with over 3,700 employees and
freelancers working from anywhere under GIG- A-Anywhere and majority of the employees in
our large offices being part of the hybrid working model. We also continued to invest in
building their skills and provided them avenues for progressing their careers through our
flagship talent management initiatives and internal job programmes.
The community continues to be a critical stakeholder for us. The Axis Bank Foundation,
under its Sustainable Livelihoods Program, crossed the significant milestone of supporting
1.3 million households as part of its mission to reach 2 million rural households by the
year 2026.
We made strong progress in our ESG-aligned commitments that we had published last year
by surpassing the targets we had set for ourselves for the fiscal across Retail and
Wholesale Banking to sectors with positive social and environmental outcomes. We also
surpassed the overall diversity ratio target for the year with women employees
representing 25.7% of the overall workforce.
The progress made in our ESG commitments continue to reflect in Bank's steady
performance at key ESG assessment and recognition platforms. The Bank featured on the
prestigious FTSE4Good Index for the sixth consecutive year in 2022 while improving its
ratings across platforms like S&P Dow Jones, MSCI and CDP.
Strong Progress Made across our Focus Segments Backed by Distinctiveness and Execution
Excellence, Giving us the Right to Win
We, at Axis Bank, remain confident on the growth opportunities in the Indian economy.
The banking industry is currently well placed with loan growth being strong across the key
segments, margins and asset quality being the best in recent years along with healthy
capital position. As India heads towards a $5trillion economy, the opportunity to leverage
some of the emerging trends like China plus 1, MSME and 'Bharat' acting as engines of
growth, rapid evolution of the next-gen public digital infrastructure like account
aggregator, OCEN and ONDC in financial services space is immense.
We believe that the large banks with stronger balance sheets, innovative and holistic
product propositions, robust technological infrastructure and digital capabilities to
deliver better customer experience would continue to gain higher market share.
We are well positioned to take advantage of these trends.
In the last four years, we have transformed the Bank to a stronger, more consistent and
sustainable franchise.
Our building blocks are firmly in place with robust growth in our focused businesses,
strong operational performance, healthy capital and balance sheet position to continue
delivering sustained profitable growth.
Given the powerful integrated platform we are building, we will continue to grow 400 to
600 bps faster than the industry, in the medium to long term. The significant strides we
made during the year on our customer obsession journey, digital capabilities, Bharat
Banking and successful acquisition of Citibank India Consumer Business further give us the
confidence in sustaining this performance.
I thank our internal and external stakeholders for their continued support and faith in
our strategy, the chosen areas of distinctiveness and our relentless approach to execution
excellence. We as a Bank remain committed to our 'Open to Win Together' tenet while
working hard towards building an all-weather institution that will stand the test of time.
Warm Regards,
Amitabh Chaudhry
MD & CEO.
  Â
Axis Bank Ltd
Company History
Axis Bank Limited is the third largest private sector bank in India. The Bank offers the entire spectrum of financial services to customer segments covering Large and Mid-Corporate, MSMEs, Agriculture and retail businesses. It provides a complete suite of banking and financial services including retail banking, wholesale banking and treasury operations. The Bank is primarily governed by the Banking Regulation Act, 1949. As on 31 March 2023, the Bank has overseas branches at Singapore, DIFC - Dubai and an Offshore Banking Unit at the International Financial Service Centre (IFSC), Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT City), Gandhinagar, India.
The Bank operates in four segments, namely treasury, retail banking, corporate/ wholesale banking and other banking business. The treasury operations include investments in sovereign and corporate debt, equity and mutual funds, trading operations, derivative trading and foreign exchange operations on the account, and for customers and central funding. Retail banking includes lending to individuals/small businesses subject to the orientation, product and granularity criterion. It also includes liability products, card services, Internet banking, automated teller machines (ATM) services, depository, financial advisory services, and non resident Indian (NRI) services. The corporate/wholesale banking segment includes corporate relationships not included under retail banking, corporate advisory services, placements and syndication, management of publics issue, project appraisals, capital market related services, and cash management services.
The Bank had a network of 4586 branches at the end of December 2020 across the country.
With 4528 domestic branches (including extension counters) and 12044 ATMs and 5433 cash recyclers across the country as on 31 March 2020, the network of Axis Bank spreads across 2,033 cities and towns, enabling the bank to reach out to a large cross-section of customers with an array of products and services. The bank also has nine overseas offices with branches at Singapore, Hong Kong, Dubai (at the DIFC), Shanghai and Colombo; representative offices at Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Dhaka and an overseas subsidiary at London, UK.
The Bank has five wholly-owned subsidiaries namely Axis Securities and Sales Ltd, Axis Private Equity Ltd, Axis Trustee Services Ltd, Axis Asset Management Company Ltd and Axis Mutual Fund Trustee Ltd.
Axis Bank was incorporated in the year 1993 with the name UTI Bank Ltd. Axis Bank is one of the first new generation private sector banks to have begun operations in 1994. The bank was promoted in 1993, jointly by Specified Undertaking of Unit Trust of India (SUUTI) (then known as Unit Trust of India), Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC), General Insurance Corporation of India (GIC), National Insurance Company Ltd., The New India Assurance Company Ltd., The Oriental Insurance Company Ltd. and United India Insurance Company Ltd. The share holding of Unit Trust of India was subsequently transferred to SUUTI, an entity established in 2003.
In the year 2001, the bank along with Global Trust Bank (GTB) had a merger proposal to create the largest private sector bank, but due to media's issues both the banks withdraw the merger proposal.
In the year 2003, the Bank was given the authorized to handle Government transactions such as collection of Government taxes, to handle the expenditure related payments of Central Government Ministries and Departments and pension payments on behalf of Civil and Non-civil Ministries such as defence, posts, telecom and railways. In December 20003, the Bank launched their merchant acquiring business.
In the year 2005, the Bank raised $239.3 million through Global Depositary Receipts. They won the award 'Outstanding Achievement Award' for the year 2005 from Indian Banks Association for IT Infrastructure, delivery capabilities and innovative solutions.
In December 2005, the Bank set up Axis Securities and Sales Ltd (originally incorporated as UBL Sales Ltd) to market credit cards and retail asset products. In October 2006, they set up Axis Private Equity Ltd, primarily to carry on the activities of managing equity investments and provide venture capital support to businesses.
In the year of 2007, the bank again raised $218.67 million through Global Depository Receipts. They opened 153 new branches during the year, which includes 43 extension counters that have been upgraded to branches and 8 Service branches/ CPCs. They also opened new overseas offices at Singapore, Dubai and Hong Kong and a representative office in Shanghai.
During the year 2007-08, the Bank opened 143 new branches, taking the number of branches to 651 which included 33 extension counters that have been upgraded to branches. Also, they expanded overseas with the opening of a branch at the Dubai International Finance Centre. The Bank changed their name from UTI Bank Ltd to Axis Bank Ltd with effect from July 30, 2007 to avoid confusion with other unrelated entities with similar name.
During the year 2008-09, the Bank opened 176 new branches that include 12 extension counters that have been upgraded to branches taking the total number of branches and ECs to 835. During the year, they opened 831 ATMs, thereby taking the ATM network of the Bank from 2,764 to 3,595. Also, they opened a Representative Office in Dubai.
In May 2008, the Bank established Axis Trustee Services Company Ltd as a wholly owned subsidiary company, which is engaged in trusteeship activities. In December 2008, they launched their new investment advisory service exclusively for High Net Worth clients.
In January 2009, the Bank set up Axis Asset Management Company Ltd to carry on the activities of managing a mutual fund business. Also, they incorporated Axis Mutual Fund Trustee Ltd to act as the trustee for the mutual fund business.
During the year 2009-10, the Bank opened 200 branches taking the total number of branches Extension Counters (ECs) to 1,035. In March 209, 2010, they opened their 1000 branch at Bandra West, Mumbai. In September 2009, Axis Bank launched the private banking business in the domestic market, christened 'Privee' to cater to highly affluent individuals and families offering them unique investment opportunities
During the year, the Capital Markets SBU was restructured with the debt capital market business (hitherto a part of the capital markets) carved into a separate vertical. As a result, the Bank's Capital Markets SBU comprises equity capital markets (ECM) business, mergers and acquisitions and private equity syndication. In February 24, 2010, the Bank launched the 'AXIS CALL & PAY on atom', a unique mobile payments solution using Axis Bank debit cards. Axis Bank is the first bank in the country to provide a secure debit card-based payment service over IVR.
During the year 2010-11, 407 new branches were added to the Bank's network taking the total number of branches and extension counters (ECs) to 1,390. Of these, 564 branches/ ECs are in semi-urban and rural areas and 826 branches/ECs are in metropolitan and urban areas. The Bank is present in all states and Union Territories (except Lakshadweep) covering 921 centres. The ATM network of the Bank increased from 4,293 to 6,270.
During the year, the Bank also opened a Representative Office in Abu Dhabi. This was in addition to the existing branches at Singapore, Hong Kong and DIFC (Dubai International Financial Centre) and representative offices at Shanghai and Dubai.
In March 7, 2011, the Bank incorporated a new subsidiary namely Axis U.K. Ltd. as a private limited company registered in the United Kingdom (UK) with the main purpose of filing an application with Financial Services Authority (FSA), UK for a banking license in the UK and for the creation of necessary infrastructure for the subsidiary to commence banking business in the UK.
On 8 January 2014, Axis Bank announced the opening of its Shanghai Branch, thus becoming the first Indian private sector bank to set up a branch in China.
On 4 December 2014, Axis Bank announced that it had closed its Senior Unsecured Redeemable Non-Convertible Debenture issue of amount Rs 5705 crore and priced at 8.85% p.a. payable annually maturing on 5 December 2024.
On 9 December 2014, Axis Bank announced the launch of limited period offer of 20 year fixed rate home loan for affordable housing at 10.40%.
On 27 July 2015, Axis Bank announced that it had signed a $200 million 7 year bilateral loan deal with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) for extending affordable agriculture credit to farmers in India.
On 22 November 2015, Axis Bank announced the opening of its Representative Office in Dhaka, Bangladesh in a bid to strengthen its international presence.
On 9 March 2016, Axis Bank announced the launch of the world's first Forex prepaid card issued in conjunction with Diners Club International, a business unit of Discover Financial Services.
On 30 March 2017, Axis Bank announced a strategic partnership with Wells Fargo & Company to offer seamless remittance facility to their NRI customers from The United States of America (USA).
On 17 June 2017, Axis Bank in association with Kochi Metro Rail Corporation (KMRL) launched India's first single-wallet contactless, open loop metro card to allow cashless commuting for commuters in Kochi.
On 5 July 2017, Axis Bank announced its foray into the luxury bikes loans segment for 500cc & above bikes.
On 11 July 2017, Axis Bank announced its collaboration with Inter-American Investment Corporation (IIC) to facilitate trade with Latin America and the Caribbean.
Axis Bank on 27 July 2017 announced that it has entered into an agreement with Jasper Infotech Private Limited to acquire 100% stake in its subsidiaries viz. FreeCharge Payment Technologies Private Limited and Accelyst Solutions Private Limited, which together constitute the digital payments business under the 'FreeCharge' brand. The deal marked the first such acquisition of a digital payments company by a bank in India.
The bank had a network of 3703 branches and 13814 ATMs & cash deposit machines as at 31 March 2018 across the country.The bank has raised Rs 8680 crore of capital from a consortium of investors (Bain Capital,Life Insurance Corporation of India and other marquee investors).
As on 31 March 2019, Bank had a network of 4050 branches,11801 ATMs and 4917 cash deposit machines across the country.
During the year 2019-20, the Bank raised additional equity capital through issue and allotment of 19,87,28,139 equity shares of Rs. 2/- each of the Bank, pursuant to a Qualified Institutional Placement Issue.
As on 31 March, 2020, Bank had a network of over 4,500 branches and over 17,477 ATMs & cash deposit machines. It opened 478 branches to its network during fiscal 2020.
As on 31 March, 2021, Bank had a network of 4,594 branches and over 11,300 ATMs & cash deposit machines. It added 66 branches to its network during fiscal 2021.
During the year 2020-21, the Bank raised additional equity capital through issue and allotment of 23,80,38,560 equity shares of Rs. 2/- each of the Bank on 11 August, 2020, pursuant to a Qualified Institutional Placement Issue.
As on 31 March, 2021, the Bank has the following 9 unlisted subsidiary companies and 1 step down subsidiary.
On 27 March, 2018, the Board of Directors of ASPL and FCPTL had approved a Scheme for Amalgamation of ASPL into and with FCPTL. ASPL and FCPTL filed final petition for approval of said merger before the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT). The appointed date for amalgamation is 7 October, 2017 and the effect of said merger was to be given on this date or any other date as may be prescribed by NCLT. Subsequent to final hearing in matter conducted during the year, FCPTL received copy of the Order approved by NCLT, Delhi and the same was filed with the Ministry of Company Affairs, in November 2019. However, in the case of ASPL, NCLT, Mumbai amended the appointed date of amalgamation from 7 October, 2017 to 1 April, 2018. The NCLT, Delhi had already approved scheme of said Merger on October 22, 2019, which will be effective from the date of filing of certified copy of the Order of NCLAT with Registrar of Companies.
During year 2020-21, Axis Private Equity Limited was merged with Axis Finance Limited. The Scheme of Merger with Axis Finance Limited got approved by NCLT, Mumbai on 23 July, 2020 and approval of the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) was received on 2 September, 2020. The Bank sold 100% stake in its subsidiary, Axis Bank UK Limited to OpenPayd Holdings Limited, United Kingdom by signing a Share Purchase Agreement on 31 March, 2021.
As on 31 March, 2022, the Bank has 9 unlisted subsidiary companies, 1 step down subsidiary and 1 associate company.
As on 31 March, 2022, Bank had a network of 4,758 branches and 10,990 ATMs & cash deposit machines. During the year 2022, Bank added 164 branches to its network.
As on 31 March, 2022, the Bank has overseas branches at Singapore, DIFC - Dubai and an Offshore Banking Unit at the International Financial Service Centre (IFSC), Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT City), Gandhinagar, India.
During fiscal 2022, five promoters of the Bank viz. The United India Insurance Company Limited, National Insurance Company Limited, The New India Assurance Company Limited, General Insurance Corporation of India and The Oriental Insurance Company Limited had been reclassified from 'Promoter' Category to 'Public' Category in terms of Regulation 31A SEBI Listing Regulations. Accordingly, as on date, the Bank has two promoters i.e. Administrator of the Specified Undertaking of Unit Trust of India and Life Insurance Corporation of India.
As on 31 March, 2023, Bank had a network of 4,903 branches and 15,953 ATMs & cash deposit machines. During the year 2022-23, Bank added 145 branches to its network.
During year 2022-23, Bank acquired on going concern basis, the business assets and business liabilities of Citibank's India Consumer Business from Citibank N. A.(CBNA) and the NBFC Consumer Business from Citicorp Finance (India) Limited (CFIL) collectively referred to as Citibank India Consumer Business, without assigning values to individual assets and liabilities effective from 01 March, 2023.