THE GREAT REBOOT
MAY YOU LIVE in interesting times,” goes a Chinese proverb—apparently both a curse and a blessing. It fittingly describes the state of affairs in the banking space. In the past decade, the sector has weathered several storms—a slowing economy, corporate deleveraging, non-performing assets (NPAs), digital disruption, and the Covid-19 pandemic.
In such times, lenders that have been able to exploit every adversity to their advantage have emerged as winners—as the 26th edition of the BT-KPMG Best Banks Survey 2020-21 finds. ICICI Bank, the country’s second-largest private bank by market capitalisation, is the Bank of the Year for the second successive year. (See box Roll of Honour.)
The banking sector as
