Axis Bank

As companies grow more profitable, they often seek to give back a part
 of their earnings to society. Attitudes to doing so vary. From the
 narrowly minimalist approach which argues that this is not the function
 of a corporate enterprise (the business of business is business as
 the economist, Milton Friedman put it) to the instrumentalist attitude
 which gives back to society in ways which could benefit the business
 prospects of the corporate enterprise, to pure philanthropy wherein the
 objectives of corporate social responsibility are set independently of
 what might benefit the corporate enterprise, companies are driven by
 different philosophies.
 
 The Axis Bank Foundation was set up in 2006 to provide philanthropy,
 and is registered as a public trust. Your Bank transfers each year 1 %
 of its net profit for the previous year to the Foundation, this being
 the maximum which the RBI permits. Giving Back is therefore the theme
 of this Report, and in several pages we describe the exceptional
 endeavours of NGOs which the Foundation supports through the lives of
 those who benefit. The trustees who run the Foundation have focused on
 education for underprivileged children, and these are largely supported
 by programme grants so that projects become replicable.
 
 This is a good time for your Bank to be giving back, for it has just
 completed a very successful year. Its Net Profit rose 69.50% to Rs.
 1,815.36 crores, its assets grew 35%, and productivity and efficiency
 levels (whether measured by Return on Assets or Return on Equity or
 Profit per Employee) have risen well over the year. Most of all, the
 Bank finds itself competitively positioned in several of its key
 businesses, and this should augur well for the year ahead.
 
 P. J. Nayak
 Chairman & CEO
 20th April 2009.