Their CASA growth had slowed before the US banking crisis.
I think the most important reason their CASA growth is slowing down is because they literally haven’t expanded branches since 2 years. Their # branches in FY21 Q1 was 924 and now I think its 928. How do you grow CASA at a good clip if you don’t expand branches? You may be able to onboard customers online or via corporate salary accounts, but if they need physical servicing at branches and the nearest one is 10 KMs away, it most likely won’t work.
On a separate note, the new MD is much more focused on quality of book rather than growth. And I like that. For a bank like SIB which had lost trust in its underwriting capabilities, prudent underwriting rather than growth is going to trigger faster re-rating IMO. Even if re-rating isn’t fast, re-rating is much more certain in this approach compared to a growth first approach.
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