OPINION | Vault Matters: Why Rajiv Anand will be 2026’s most tracked bank CEO

IndusInd Bank CEO Rajiv Anand

2025 has solidly belonged to the banking sector. It is the year of deals. But one bank everyone continues to talk about is IndusInd Bank. The regulator doesn’t seem too perturbed any longer about the treasury frauds reported in March this year. The bank has a new CEO, and a new team is gradually being pieced together.

The question on everyone’s mind is when the good news will start flowing from IndusInd Bank.

Frankly enough, there aren’t expectations of a turnaround just yet. But even to come up with a convincing narrative, IndusInd Bank could still be many quarters away. And what that narrative could be is one of the toughest things to nail for Rajiv Anand, the bank’s new CEO.

Even in a steady set-up like Axis Bank, Amitabh Chaudhry, who took over from Shikha Sharma in 2019, needed 3–4 years and an acquisition (Citi’s retail arm) to establish a positive narrative. Gaining the trust of investors is still a work in progress. One could say Amitabh, being an outsider, may have had it tough. But toss the same question to Sandeep Bakhshi, who took over as CEO of ICICI Bank from Chanda Kochchar in October 2018, and the answer may not be very different.

The reason being, assessing the gravity of the issues, changing the mindset of employees, bringing in the right kind of talent into the system, and delivering on promises is a three-year-long process. Despite being a quasi-insider, it wasn’t until mid-2022 that the Street was absolutely confident of what Bakhshi was doing.

Take the case of RBL Bank. If not for Emirates NBD’s transaction, investors were unwilling to buy into the story, regardless of whatever RS Kumar, its ceo, was attempting.

On that note, Ravneet Gill, who took charge as Yes Bank's CEO in 2019 deserves a mention. He wasted no time in rolling out the clean-up act and attempts to raise capital. While history may not be very kind to him, he identified what was needed to be done to pare the mountain of bad assets, including earmarking assets for sale to an asset reconstruction company. What he possibly lost sight of, in anticipation of the capital raise, was the immediate bond obligation falling due. Everything that happened subsequently is a well-documented reconstruction plan.

Rajiv's challenge resembles Ravneet’s.

With new dimensions emerging on fraud investigations every week, Rajiv, for the foreseeable future, may be caught between clearing the air on things that happened in the past and his aspirations to move the ship forward. That’s a tough tug-of-war. Three things are in his favour – the regulator’s long leash, a comfortable capital position, and a perfect setting: he’s come in at a time when things look clean, but are still questionable.

In his first interaction with investors after the September quarter results, he made it clear that they should not expect anything big. FY26 may be a washout year.

The real fun would start from Q1 FY27. If Rajiv is able to pull off decent revenue and profit numbers and make the best of the low-base effect, he would have struck gold with all stakeholders. That means, by the end of this fiscal year, he should have his A-team in place, well-equipped to go out and grab business.

But if a turnaround is delayed beyond the June 2027 quarter, eyebrows may start raising.

Meanwhile, if Rajiv is able to rope in a strategic investor, like what KVS Manian at Federal Bank did with Blackstone, that would put him in a different league that very few CEOs enjoy. In short, 2026 will define how Rajiv will be remembered as a CEO.

On that note, wishing you all a very happy New Year and see you again on January 2!