Ganesh Sankaran, Executive Director (ED), IndusInd Bank
Private sector bank IndusInd Bank is looking to sharpen its growth strategy around small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and the mid-market segment by leveraging its existing distribution network and established customer relationships, a senior bank executive said.“That is one area where I believe that as a franchise, we can do a lot more, for a variety of reasons. The opportunity itself is very large,” Ganesh Sankaran, Executive Director (ED), IndusInd Bank, said. “SME and mid-market is the space where we want to grow,” he added.Sankaran is a senior banker with around 30 years of experience in Wholesale, Retail Credit and SME, and was recently elevated to the position of ED in April.Sankaran sees significant headroom in the segment as India’s economy expands, especially with growth of the supply chain around sectors such as defence, electronics manufacturing, electric vehicles, data centres and others.The executive also pointed to emerging private investment in renewable energy, data centres, network infrastructure and electronics manufacturing as areas where the bank is already seeing opportunities. These, for instance, also contributed to recent wholesale lending growth in Q1, he said. “We are engaging with such companies and have done a few transactions,” he added.Digital infrastructure enterprise Lightstorm is one such name, which raised ₹2,500 crore in debt from IndusInd Bank for the buildout of a dedicated fibre network for artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructureCASA growthAs for its strategy to grow NIMs in a competitive landscape, IndusInd Bank, according to the ED, is looking to build more sustainable liability flows alongside loan growth. We are trying to get the lending relationships to evolve into broader customer relationships, he said.In this regard, the bank’s recent decision to set up a subsidiary for stockbroking business, will also help offer customers a broader suite of financial products, allowing them to bank, invest and trade through the same ecosystem, he said.IndusInd has about 3,000 branches, besides a rural distribution network of a similar scale.Geopolitical risks and SME working capitalThe senior banker does not see recent geopolitical tensions as having caused significant stress in its corporate book, but expects changes in supply chains to create temporary increases in working-capital requirements.Governance and controlsOn the bank’s past governance concerns, the executive described the episode as a “one-off” and said there was nothing systemic in the bank’s current risk architecture.“We have further re-emphasised the ‘maker-checker’ architecture that already existed,” he said, noting separate teams responsible for origination, underwriting, portfolio risk, post-disbursement monitoring and collections. The focus now is on sharpening these controls and building greater consistency in execution, he added.“Banking is a boring business; What we are trying to do is to make it a lot more predictable, a lot more boring to be more consistent in execution,” he said.Published on August 13, 2026
