With rumours doing the rounds that all is not well at the top deck of Yes Bank, Prashant Kumar, MD & CEO, Yes Bank clarified that none of it is true in this exclusive interview to Moneycontrol. “There is absolutely no conflict,” Kumar emphasized.
“If anybody has this kind of impression or understanding, I don’t know why this has happened. Sometimes, these kind of things are created by certain people for their own ambitions,” he added. “Firstly, there is absolutely no disconnect between any part of the bank. Secondly, this bank has grown with a lot of commonality of the purpose. Once this commonality of purpose and purity of purpose has been there across the way, there is room for any differences”.
To top Kumar’s clarification, Rajan Pental, executive director of the bank and head of its retail business said, “We have so many moving parts and there are strategic initiative every quarter. When you have to take so many calls, do you think it can happen with differences in the top management?”
Rumours of disconnect between Kumar and Pental increased when the bank recently identified redundancies in a few roles and senior leaders of the bank heading those verticals were asked to leave. When asked why the book undertook the exercise of identifying and clearing up redundancies in roles at this juncture, Kumar said it was done keeping in mid the next five years of the bank. “We would also make the balance sheet very strong so that there is no past impact on the future. Now there is a strategy for next five years in terms of profitability. Also, the way the markets are changing has made it important to align certain businesses”.
To put things in perspective, four senior leaders of the bank, namely, Akshay Sapru (Head of Affluent and Private Banking), Dhaval Shah (Head of SME Banking), Sanjiv Roy (Head of Fee Business), and Pankaj Sharma (Chief Strategy Officer) were let go earlier this month due to an internal restructuring activity at the bank. following this exercise, Micro SME business which is regulatory retail loans of up to Rs 7.5 crores (loan threshold), has been aligned with branch network and will remain within the retail. SME loans has become part of the mid-corporate and commercial banking. On the retail side, private customers would also be catered by branches and the bank has done away with a separate vertical for fee income. “Ultimately, for any customer, the branch is very critical. A customer identifies a bank through the branch and the branch should be able to handle all kind of customers. Similarly we were having a separate fee line business.
When asked if one should expect more pruning of manpower at the bank, Kumar asserted that the process has completed. “The restructuring has been done, keeping the next five years in mind,” he added. Reiterating that the people who were let go were extremely competent, committed and great professionals, he said the possibility of finding an alternate role for them within the bank was slim given their positioning as senior leaders of the bank. “Junior people can be accommodated in some position now. They were very senior people”, he said.
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