The restructuring – expected within days – will “clean up” the organization and lead to the departure of underperforming employees without impacting workforce levels, CEO Rajiv Anand told Bloomberg News in an interview.
The bank will also dedicate more resources to artificial intelligence and expand its retail operations to strengthen its balance sheet, Anand said.
Backed by India’s Hinduja billionaire family, the bank has gone through a turbulent period marked by an investigation into a 19.6 billion rupee ($221 million) accounting discrepancy that led to the departure of its former CEO and key senior managers. The bank reported losses for the second quarter and accelerated bad debt write-offs from the previous three months.
India’s fifth-largest private lender by assets has already replaced several executives in core audit functions, including the chief financial officer, and added a new internal auditor and a strengthened assurance team, Anand said. A new Chief Risk Officer will take office in January, as the current one retires.
Anand described the organization as one that has built up “organizational cholesterol,” citing inefficiencies and outdated processes that have slowed execution.
“Restructuring takes place regularly in every organization where employees who do not perform as expected are dismissed. It happens everywhere and it will continue to happen at IndusInd too,” Anand said, while clarifying that there will be no large-scale layoffs at the bank.
Shares of IndusInd are down about 12 percent this year, compared to a 9 percent rise in the S&P BSE Sensex Index.
IndusInd employs over 44,000 people, with a network spanning over 3,000 locations across India.
The impact of the crisis has affected profitability, leaving the lender’s return figures well below those of comparable companies. The lender’s return on assets – a financial measure that shows how profitable a company is relative to its assets – was -0.33 per cent in the three months to September, compared with 1.88 per cent for the larger Kotak Mahindra Bank. A negative ratio indicates that the bank lost money on its asset base during the period.
Anand has set a target of achieving a 1 percent return on assets within 18 months, calling this the first milestone in the bank’s turnaround. Achieving that goal would demonstrate that the bank is “on the mend. Then we can adjust our ambitions.”
He added that the lender is “very well capitalized” and does not expect to raise new funds in the next two years. He denies any talks to lure investment from global private equity firms.
While IndusInd has traditionally focused on commercial vehicle loans and microfinance, the bank plans to expand its retail portfolio to include home loans and loans to micro, small and medium enterprises to make profits more predictable.
Asset management will also be a key long-term growth area, driven by increasing prosperity in smaller cities, according to Anand.
“IndusInd could be on the road to recovery” as it strengthens its balance sheet, Bloomberg Intelligence analysts Sarah Jane Mahmud and Alison Hor said in an October note. “Stronger systems and controls, amid a related ongoing fraud investigation, could help quell concerns about governance.”
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Published on November 20, 2025
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