Is RBL Bank better off after the RBI’s intervention?
New CEO Subramaniakumar may have made a slow start, but it remains to be seen if he can pick up the pace.
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Editor's note: In June 2022, when R. Subramaniakumar was appointed at the helm of RBL Bank, the mandate was clear: Bump up the bank’s secured retail loan book as well as retail deposits and savings/current accounts. His appointment was the second instance in two years of the Reserve Bank of India roping in a public sector banker to navigate a private sector bank out of a crisis situation. In early 2020, Prashant Kumar was put in charge of Yes Bank. He managed to steer Yes Bank from near collapse to profits in just a year. A high bar for Subramaniakumar. But the new RBL Bank managing director and CEO hasn’t had a strong start. Subramaniakumar was expected to accomplish his tasks at a pace that was faster than under the bank's former CEO and MD, Vishwavir Ahuja, who was nudged out by the RBI for not doing enough to bring down RBL’s high quantum of unsecured loans and increase retail deposits. But as things stand right now, the bank’s CASA, or current account-savings account, ratio—at 36.2% of total deposits—has shown only a …
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