Aim for the sky, but move slowly, enjoying every step along the way. It is all those little steps that make the journey complete.
— Chanda Kochhar
While working hard for my career, I looked after my family and have been there for my mother and in-laws when they needed me around. They reciprocated in kind with their unconditional love and support for my career.
We have no exposure in Europe and not made any finances to the companies there. So the question of Greek debt crisis impacting the bank does not arise.
ICICI Group has always been a catalyst in India's growth and continues to support the country in every sphere.
I thought work and family complete life. Aarti's enthusiasm and energy levels made me realise that life can be even more wholesome and fuller.
Any of our businesses will not exist in the form that is today, will not exist in the same form one year later, two years later... We have to worry about the disruptions in the business models and the practices.
The scope of activities for payments banks mainly includes acceptance of demand deposits, issuance of ATM/debit cards, payment and remittance services, and distribution of third-party products.
The MBA entrance exams are so quantitative-oriented that it keeps out more and more women from joining the MBA classes. If we were to make the entrance exams more all-rounded, you could see more participation.
I have always been saying that while - the legislative reforms are good, but there are so many low-hanging fruits that we have look for by taking executive decisions. I think the government is actually moving in the right direction.
Power projects are differently placed to road projects. There's difference stress across different companies across different groups based on their leverage levels.
In India, we have the opportunity to give innovation the kind of scale that no other country in the world can. Innovation is a necessity.
We have to understand that India is a complex country. Everything takes time for the real impact to get translated to the economy.
Our approach on lending has always been that we will lend to India-linked assets, because that's the risk that we understand, and that is the business that has been doing very well.
The consolidation that we started in 2009 was clearly the requirement of that time.
We are monitoring the global companies on a daily basis, and their rating continues to be investment grade. We will take immediate action if anything goes wrong.
Every quarter, we need to see the portfolio and follow the accounting practice of mark-to-market that values investments according to the prevailing market prices and at the price at which they are made.
As we were growing retail, and it was a huge growth phase, it was very important to keep our quality under control. Therefore, it was not just distribution, not just back-office operations, but also the risk-management practices. And these we learned together, supported by technology.
Adaptability is a great asset to have because life is so unpredictable, and things can change overnight for any of us.
You have to handle the challenges and emerge stronger from them, rather than allow them to bog you down.
Over the years, we have financed projects in core industrial sectors like steel, cement, aluminium and petrochemicals, and in manufacturing sectors like automobiles and textiles.
I believe that India's long-term growth story is strong, and foreign investors are keen to be a part of it.
Practise and practise to make your dreams turn into reality.
Rather than worrying about entities, we should worry about the trends in technology that may cause disruptions... if we get so paranoid that banking is no longer going to exist and banks are going to get disrupted, I think that is a different worry.
We believe the new banks will complement the existing banking system, and there will be opportunities for players to identify mutually beneficial partnerships.
As far as discom reforms are concerned, they have to be a combination of two parts. One is the existing balance sheet and, therefore, taking care of that. The second important is the reduction in losses going forward.
We need to take the country in the right direction, whether it is around administrative policy decisions or legislative changes or ensuring the macroeconomic stability.
If you take existing ideas and make them affordable and scalable, you substantially change business models. India lacks an education system that is research- and creativity-oriented.
When we in our sector talk of the adoption of Indian consumers to new products and innovative ways of doing banking, they always exceed our expectations.
We have to address impediments that stall implementation of projects and streamline the process to ensure smooth execution going forward. We need to address the leverage levels among corporates to restart investment cycle.
The growth that we are targeting for our bank is in line with the banking industry.
If you look at the numbers from 2002 to 2016, we have consistently been market leaders. We have followed a well-articulated strategy, and our focus is to continue that strategy.
Mark-to-market losses are not real loss. It's a notional loss. What we can monitor is the credit quality of the underlying papers. Are the companies paying interest on time? Is there any deterioration in the credit quality of these companies?
We believe that rural India is going to be the next driver of growth. You cannot make money overnight there, as you have to set up infrastructure there; the value of transactions is lower - you need a few years before you can really make all those businesses profitable.
Successful strategic vision lay in the fact that we visualized the retail business to be much bigger, ahead of what others thought it to be.
I learnt to always keep my mind open to new ideas and looked at each new assignment as an opportunity to learn and prove myself.
Remember to be sensitive to the feelings of people around you.
We have a vision of a strong and prosperous India and an equally strong belief that this vision is achievable.
I use my interaction with both my kids to know how the youth today relates to technology, their expectations in terms of mobility and social solutions by customer services-oriented businesses like banking.
Only if you aspire for more will you achieve more.
Payments banks can also act as business correspondents of other banks.
You can maintain work-life balance even while pursuing careers.
The increase in coal production and the efficiency in coal movement are all administrative things that can add a lot to the economic growth.
My belief is India's banking industry will continue to grow at two and a half times the GDP growth rate.
India did not innovate with the ATMs. But when we brought ATMs into India and made the machines talk in 15 regional languages to the people in rural India, we got millions of transactions on the ATM.
A demography that is digitising rapidly, and the potential to invest in infrastructure, are the key strengths of India.
Our institutional framework needs to be bolstered further. We have to implement laws like the proposed Bankruptcy Code and GST (Goods and Services Tax), which will create efficiencies and strongly support the business environment.
It's not that the regulator doesn't want the banking industry to grow. The growth of the industry has always been in relation to the GDP (gross domestic product) growth.
We have always said that over the medium and long term, we will disinvest some part of our holding in our major subsidiary companies, and life insurance is our largest subsidiary company.
We don't understand the equity market well, and so we deploy funds in fixed-income securities, and like any other securities, investment in those securities also need to follow the mark-to-market accounting principle.
Our focus is more on secured retail business like housing and car loans. While we will do some unsecured loans - credit cards and personal loans - we will do it primarily with existing customers.
