Quotes from Uday Kotak

Kotak Mahindra Bank has very significant presence in the West and the North, and our total branch network between these two regions is 80 per cent, and in case of ING Vysya Bank, their network in South is 64 per cent of their total branch network.

I am a great believer in Indian entrepreneurship. There is a whole set of people doing so many exciting things.

My view is make Indian manufacturing competitive, and if it is competitive, it can serve customers or consumers anywhere.

The government should move towards supporting aspirations and not entitlement. Subsidies supporting non-productive growth should be reduced.

The ability to scale up is hard. So the best model for us is concentrated India, diversified financial services, and through this, we can get significant scale on an Indian platform.

I do believe that banks are special - they are very leveraged institutions by nature; therefore, it's even more critical to ensure that the governance and the process of running a banking company are well-organised, managed and regulated.

Our approach to banking is very different from the traditional banks or even some of the new banks. We do not necessarily go out and write single-cheque, large-ticket loans.

I am big believer that increase the size of the cake is as at least as important as distribution of the cake. To increase the size of the cake, you need to focus on progress.

The single biggest resource India has is people and skill.

In a marathon, if you run too fast, you get exhausted. If you run too slow, you never make it.

I grew up in a joint family of 60 people with one kitchen. So I am a firm believer in the family concept.

Our view is that younger customers love our digital offering, our mobile banking applications and so on. Older customers expect relationship managers and want much more personal attention in terms of their needs.

The trouble with opportunity is, it never announces when it comes. It's only after it's gone, you'd realize that you missed it.

There is socialism in the family that conflicts with meritocracy. And that bothered me.

There's no harm being a copycat. If someone else is doing a good job, copy. It's free.

Culture is about the mindset of people, and we are very happy to have a strong combined mindset of people.

In equities, you price the risk. As far as debt is concerned, if the markets get more sophisticated where, for the levels of risks that you take, you get the debt returns, we will certainly look at it. It's back to a philosophy of risk-adjusted returns.

Foreign investors are looking for a consistent and stable policy in India.

It's true that I have always been very comfortable with numbers.

We are extremely focused on building some of the assets which are going into mid-India, semi-urban and rural, and that's our DNA. We are building a retail bank, and a lot of the deposit base is still in urban India.

My view is that, as management, the focus has to be on having a strategy and executing it. As you do the strategy and execution, it is important to communicate it consistently.

If you ask me, over time, I am a believer in the Indian financial saving story getting stronger; a lot more savers are moving money away from gold and real estate into banks, mutual funds, insurance and equities.

If India grows steadily and does the structural things right and carefully unties knots, builds an institutional process which sort of cleans up the corruption and the baggage in the system, I see it as a wonderful marathon.

If what you create does not outlive you, then you have failed.