Mumbai: Almost a year after Axis Bank has sealed the acquisition of Citibank with credit cards, the creditor of the private sector witnesses the outputs of some higher persons who joined as part of this merger.
According to the announcement of the Stock Exchange on Friday, Arjun Chowdhry, director of the group responsible for rich banking, cards, payments and retail loans at Axis Bank, resigned on Friday. Along with this, Arvind Singl, President for Retail Banking Operations at the Bank, also resigned, according to two people who are aware of the matter.
Both bankers joined Axis of Citibank as part of the fusion process, which began two years ago. In Citi was Chowdhry Head, Consumer Bank and Singla was the CEO and Consumer Operations Head of Operations.
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Their exits come at a time when the bank faces challenges in their retail, including credit cards. Agreement with Citi made Axis the fourth largest credit card issuer in the country. However, the bank has slowed down card issuing in the last year after the quality of assets. Credit card issuing fell to much less than a million cards for quarter out of the 1st quarter of FY25. More than 1 million cards were issued in the previous quarters in the quarter.
According to the Bank’s investor’s presentation at the end of June Credit Card Portfolio grew by 1% and 2% year -on -year (year -on -year) £43 517 crore, compared to 4% year -on -year growth in the fourth quarter ended in December.
Together with the NPA (non -paying assets) in the total portfolio of retail loans, the Q1 FY26 increased from 1.6% in the previous quarter to the data from the presentation of investors that the bank attributed to changes in the technical classification of loans. Overall, NPA – including all loans – at the end of the first quarter of FY26 in the previous quarter compared to 1.28%.
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Both bankers and Axis bank refused to comment on Mitin’s questions who have been contacted.
“We see a general trend, especially in unsecured, where stress is across several segments – this stress is powered by indebtedness, is powered by higher levels of loans that these customers do not necessarily operate,” said Amitabh Choudhary, CEO and CEO of Axis Bank in Q1 FY26 calls. “It is too early in the cycle to call in two way. And I think the way to look at it is that the vintage distribution of each creditor will be different.”
This means that the management has ensured the quality of asset quality in an unsecured loan portfolio. The bank also made further provisions to compensate for any increase in bad loans, as shown in the analytical call.
“We saw an improvement on the side of the credit card and stabilization on the side of a personal loan,” Choudhary said. “We mentioned that all key indicators that include the level of abandonment, early delinquency, collection efficiency, all showed an improving trend, and that’s something that provides us with comfort.”
Analysts are still bulls on Axis. “Recognition of the current quality of AXIS Bank asset is not directly linked to the Citi portfolio,” said ASUTOSH MISHRA, head of institutional shares, Ashok shares, and added that the CITI portfolio on the asset part primarily supported the bank in the credit card segment.
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“Moreover, many of these customers belong to segments with a high rating that have not shown any signs of stress of asset quality,” Misra said.
Last year Axis Bank completed the merger at Citibank consumer enterprises. In a value agreement £1.11 603 Crore, Axis received credit card, loans, property management and retail operations. Bank added 2.5 million Citibank credit cards with portfolio £8,900 Crore, with its total outstanding credit cards to 10.6 million and net portfolio £24,400 Crore, according to the investor’s presentation of 30 March 2022.
Axis Bank shares increased by almost 30%since the completion of the Citibank portfolio in March 2023.
(Tagstotranslate) Axis Bank (T) Retail Loan (T) Unsecured Loans (T) Notification of Exchange (T) Citibank (T) Retail (T) Credit Card (T) Card Issuance (T) Investor Presentation (T) Inaccessible Asset (T) Indebtedness (T) Premature Bus (T) collection
