Anup Bagchi spent more than three decades helping build India’s second-largest private lender across almost every part of finance. Now he must rebalance the largest one after its giant merger and give investors the growth they have been waiting for.
HDFC Bank Ltd. has looked outside for its next leader, and it has gone to its fiercest rival to find him. Anup Bagchi, who has spent his entire career at the ICICI group, will take over as managing director and chief executive officer of India’s largest private-sector lender for three years starting 27 October. His term will run until 26 October 2029.
The Reserve Bank of India approved the appointment under Section 35B of the Banking Regulation Act, and the bank’s board cleared it on 1 October.
Bagchi joins the board as an additional director from 2 October, and his appointment as chief executive still needs shareholder approval. He succeeds Sashidhar Jagdishan, who has led the bank since 2020 and told the board in August that he would not seek another term.
The choice is significant in itself. HDFC Bank sent two names to the regulator: Bagchi and deputy managing director Kaizad Bharucha, a long-serving insider.
The bank has long been known for promoting from within, and Jagdishan has been there since 1996. Choosing the external candidate suggests the board wants a change in approach, not just a change of leader.
A career
Bagchi, 56, brings unusually broad experience. Since joining ICICI in 1992, he has worked in treasury, retail banking, wholesale banking, investment banking and digital financial services. Few Indian bankers have run businesses across so many parts of the industry.
He led ICICI Securities as chief executive and managing director, which gave him experience in capital markets and stockbroking.
From 2017 to 2023 he was an executive director of ICICI Bank, first in charge of retail, business and rural banking and later of wholesale banking. In that period ICICI Bank became the first private Indian lender with a home-loan book of more than ₹2 trillion.
He also held board roles across the group. He chaired ICICI Prudential Asset Management Company until May 2023 and was a director of ICICI Prudential Pension Fund Management and ICICI Home Finance.
Since June 2023 he has been managing director and chief executive of ICICI Life Insurance, formerly ICICI Prudential Life Insurance, one of India’s largest listed private life insurers. He holds an engineering degree from IIT Kanpur and a management degree from IIM Bangalore.
What he inherits
That breadth suits HDFC Bank’s main challenge. Since absorbing mortgage lender HDFC Ltd. in 2023, the bank has carried a loan book larger than its deposits comfortably support. It has spent the years since slowing loan growth and gathering deposits to bring the two back into line. Investors have respected that caution but not rewarded it, and the stock has trailed rivals that kept growing.
ICICI Bank, Bagchi’s former employer, grew retail deposits and loans together while keeping bad loans and costs under control. HDFC Bank’s board is effectively betting that he can bring that approach with him. His time in insurance, asset management and broking also points to more selling of insurance, investment and wealth products to existing customers, a source of fee income that depends less on the lending balance sheet.
What to watch
An executive from the rival HDFC Bank has competed with for decades must win over a management team built around internal promotion, including Bharucha, who was passed over. How senior leaders respond in the coming months will show whether the handover is smooth.
The second test is strategy: how quickly Bagchi moves on deposit growth, digital banking and cross-selling, and whether he changes the bank’s cautious lending pace. The bank’s shares closed 1.76% higher at ₹721.20 on 1 October, before the announcement, as markets welcomed an end to the succession uncertainty.
His departure also opens a leadership search at ICICI Life Insurance, adding another change at the top of India’s financial sector.
About The Author
