Toward the end of 2018, there was deep tension inside Axis House in Worli, Mumbai. Axis Bank, India’s third-largest private bank, was under heavy pressure from bad loans.
No one was quite sure how the bank would come out of it, or where the solution would come from.
By then, the bank’s bad loans had climbed to 6.77 percent. Axis Bank had posted a net loss of nearly INR 22 billion in the fourth quarter of that year.
When the report came out, investors were alarmed.
The issue was not the loss alone. An assessment by India’s central bank, the RBI, had pointed out that Axis had hidden or understated its bad loans.
That raised questions not just about its balance sheet, but also about the bank’s reporting discipline, risk management, and credibility.
Alongside these bad reports, one strong rumor began to spread in the market — Axis Bank’s problems were far deeper than they appeared.
Amid this controversy and pressure, the RBI did not accept the board’s wish to give then CEO Shikha Sharma another full term. In the end, her tenure was shortened.
In that discouraging situation, the Axis Bank board began looking for a new CEO.
When the bank finally announced the new CEO, many in the banking sector were surprised.
The reason was simple: the new CEO had not come from the Indian banking world in the traditional sense. He had not worked as the CEO of any Indian bank.
He was Amitabh Chaudhry.
Whispers began in banking circles.
“Amitabh is from insurance,” people said, “Why bring someone from outside banking into such a troubled bank? Could he handle such a large institution in crisis?”
At the same time, while Axis Bank was fighting its own crisis, another uncertainty had begun to unsettle the wider Indian banking sector.
Banks were already feeling threatened by the rise of fintech.
Powerful fintech companies such as Paytm, PhonePe, and Google Pay were beginning to take control of the customer relationship in payments, a business that banks considered close to their heart.
For banks, this was an uncomfortable situation. The money was still in bank accounts. But the customer’s daily experience — how to use that money, how to pay, how to spend — was increasingly being captured by fintech apps.
Many bankers began to see fintech companies not only as competitors, but as a threat to their future.
Their fear was this: if fintechs were allowed too far into the banking system, banks could be reduced to mere 'stores' for keeping money. The customer relationship would move to fintech apps.
It was in this moment — when Axis Bank was trapped in its own crisis, and the wider banking industry was anxious about fintech — that Amitabh took charge as CEO of Axis.
By education, Amitabh is both an engineer and a manager. He studied engineering at India’s prestigious BITS Pilani and completed his MBA from IIM Ahmedabad.
In that sense, he had been shaped by both technology and management.
Although he had not served as the CEO of a bank in India, he had long experience in technology, financial services, and insurance. He was CEO and MD at Infosys BPO. Later, he became MD and CEO of HDFC Life. Even before that, he had worked in institutions connected to financial services and banking.
At Infosys, he had understood one thing deeply — technology is not just software. It is a powerful tool to improve efficiency and scale. Technology can help complete thousands of transactions quickly, safely, at a lower cost, and with fewer mistakes.
During his nine years leading HDFC Life, he pushed digital thinking, new products, and new ways of reaching customers in the insurance business. The knowledge and experience he gained at Infosys and HDFC Life would later prove useful at a troubled Axis Bank.
When he entered Axis, Amitabh did not look only at the balance sheet. He also examined the bank’s technology, risk management, and systems for reaching customers.
He felt that if Axis Bank was a large body, its nervous system — its technology and processes — had problems. It had to be changed. It had to be modernized.
In an interview with Financial Express, Amitabh spoke about the main challenges he saw when he joined Axis — bad loans, old technology systems, and risky business expansion.
That was where his priorities became clear.
He was not trying to give Axis Bank only a digital shine. His first focus was to strengthen the bank’s foundation. Without fixing bad loans and risky management, digital expansion could not last.
He also did not ignore the challenge of fintech rising in the banking sector. He understood it well.
Because he knew the technology sector closely, he also knew that the future of banking could not be protected by standing against technology. Technology had to be adopted. Fintech had to be seen not just as a competitor, but as a possible partner.
He also tried to bring some of fintech’s qualities inside the bank.
His basic thinking was clear: if fintech companies could serve customers quickly, banks too had to provide safe, regulation-friendly, and fast service.
Inside Axis, he pushed a culture that valued both speed and risk management.
The turn towards open-banking
Under Amitabh’s leadership, Axis Bank began moving from a traditional branch-centered bank towards a digital platform. Its strategy did not remain limited to opening more branches or improving its website, as many banks were doing. Axis began looking for ways to reach customers wherever they already were.
For this, Axis expanded digital platforms, APIs, fintech partnerships, and mobile-based services.
In simple terms, the bank was no longer only an institution sitting inside its own building and waiting for customers. It began entering the apps, e-commerce platforms, and digital services that customers were already using.
An API is basically a secure digital bridge. It connects a bank’s system with outside apps or platforms. With APIs, banking services can be made available inside e-commerce apps, payment apps and other digital services. They allow information to move safely between banks and outside platforms.
With this thinking, Axis Bank started the NEO platform. NEO is a platform that digitizes corporate and transaction banking. It helped companies carry out banking services, transactions, payments, and other financial work digitally. It also helped push Axis’s banking system towards a more open and digital structure.
Amitabh made another bold decision — to partner with large digital platforms.
At a time when many banks were looking at fintech and tech companies with doubt and suspicion, Axis began using them as bridges to customers.
In 2019, Axis Bank partnered with India’s large e-commerce company Flipkart and launched the Flipkart Axis Bank Credit Card.
This opened a way for Axis to reach a large group of young customers active in e-commerce. Customers began connecting with the bank’s credit product through their online shopping behavior, without having to visit a bank branch.
This was not just a card. It opened a new door for the bank to enter the daily lives of customers. When customers shopped online, looked for cashback, or made digital payments, they began using Axis Bank’s service. The bank was beginning to enter not only the customer’s wallet, but also the customer’s mobile phone.
Then, in 2020, Axis Bank, in partnership with Google Pay and Visa, launched the Axis Bank ACE Credit Card. Eligible users could apply for the card directly from the Google Pay app.
Later, other loan and credit products of Axis Bank were also expanded through Google Pay.
This showed Amitabh’s basic thinking — a bank should not only call customers to its branches or website; it should reach customers where they already are. Fintech apps and digital platforms should not be treated only as competitors. They can also be new roads to customers.
At the Global Fintech Fest in 2024, Amitabh said that not working with fintech is a loss for banks themselves. Banks do not have enough resources to build all the technology, products, and customer experiences on their own. When banks work with fintechs, both sides can benefit.
That is why he said banks should welcome fintechs with an open mind.
In this way, Axis Bank kept moving ahead with fintech and tech companies in payments, e-commerce, credit cards, and digital loans.
The bank handled regulation, capital, and risk management. Fintech and digital platforms gave Axis access to customers, speed, and convenience.
That, in many ways, is the basic principle of modern bank-fintech cooperation.
Banks have capital, regulation, trust, and risk management. Fintechs have speed, simplicity, an understanding of customers’ digital behavior, and user-friendly interfaces. When the two come together, both sides gain.
What progress did Axis Bank make under Amitabh’s leadership?
Under Amitabh Chaudhry’s leadership, Axis Bank made significant progress after 2019 in business, profit, digital capacity, and market presence.
First, the bank tried to come out of the pressure of bad loans. It brought major improvements in risk management. Cleaning up the balance sheet became a priority.
Second, the bank strengthened its profit and capital position. After coming out of the crisis of 2018, Axis Bank again stood firmly among India’s major private banks.
Third, the bank made a big leap in connecting with digital customers. Many tasks — opening savings accounts, applying for credit cards, starting loan processes, and making payments — began to move through digital channels. Branches remained important, but they were no longer the only center of banking.
Fourth, Axis Bank became a very aggressive and influential player in the credit card market. Partnerships with Flipkart, Google Pay, and other digital platforms helped the bank reach young, urban, and digital customers in a major way.
This was not magic. Nor was it an overnight turnaround. Behind it was the courage to identify bad loans, the discipline to improve capital and risk management, and Amitabh’s thinking of reaching customers through a clear strategy built on technology and digital partnerships.
The path Axis took under Amitabh’s leadership was part of the larger digital transformation taking place in Indian banking.
SBI had already launched its YONO app in 2017. YONO tried to bring banking, insurance, investment, loans, cards, and lifestyle services together in one app. SBI has already launched YONO 2.0 in 2025.
ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, and other large banks were also moving ahead with their own strategies in digital banking, mobile apps, and payment cards.
But the Axis Bank story matters for a different reason.
At a time when the bank itself was struggling with bad loans, losses, and a crisis of credibility, Amitabh Chaudhry made digital partnership one of the main strategies for its recovery.
In recent years, one thing has become clear in Indian banking — the bank of the future will not run only through branches. It will run through a combination of data, APIs, mobile apps, digital partnerships, risk management, and algorithms.
This does not mean branches will disappear. They will remain. But branches will no longer be the only door to banking. Customers will meet the bank on mobile phones, in e-commerce, on payment apps, and in loan applications. Sometimes, they will use banking services so smoothly that banking will not even feel like a separate task.
One feature stands out in Amitabh’s style of work — he is not only a traditional banker. He is a manager who thinks about technology, risk, and customer experience together. He tried to reduce the distance between bankers and technology experts inside the bank.
He pushed the idea that while designing banking products, it is no longer enough to think only about interest rates, collateral, and branches. The customer’s digital journey, data, risk, and ease of use must also be understood.
That is why the story of Axis Bank is not only about how one bank came out of a crisis.
It is the story of how a traditional bank can make itself relevant again when it sees fintech not as an enemy, but as a partner.
Lessons from Amitabh Chaudhry for Nepal
Even today, there is an invisible psychological wall in Nepal between banks and fintech companies, mainly wallets.
Banks fear that fintechs may take away the customer relationships and deposit base they have built over many years.
On the other side, fintechs feel that banks are too slow, too closed, and too control-oriented.
This mistrust exists on both sides.
Some of the things Amitabh has said are important for fintech companies as well.
At the Global Fintech Fest in 2022, he said fintech companies sometimes have a tendency to keep doing what they want and hope that the regulator does not come.
That tendency, he said, has to change. Fintechs need to pay far more attention to compliance than they do now.
Amitabh’s view is that if fintech companies want long-term cooperation with banks, innovation alone is not enough. Regulation, data protection, customer protection, risk management, and grievance handling must be built into the system from the very beginning.
His views are also important in understanding why banks hesitate to work with fintechs.
In his view, banks have real concerns: Will customers’ money remain safe? How will data be used? What will the regulator say? Who will take the risk? Who will be responsible if mistakes happen? Who will resolve customer complaints?
He says, “Without credible answers to these questions, bank-fintech cooperation cannot become strong.”
At the same time, banks also cannot keep looking at fintech only as a risk.
In Nepal, banks are still heavily dependent on collateral-based lending. Small business owners, young entrepreneurs, self-employed people, and those who carry out digital transactions but do not have formal collateral still do not have easy access to credit.
Wallets, payment companies, and digital service providers are increasingly gaining information and access related to customer behavior. This is gradually creating the information needed for data-based lending.
If safe, regulation-friendly, and transparent cooperation can be built between banks and fintechs, access to credit can be expanded in Nepal. By understanding customers’ digital transactions, income patterns, spending habits, and payment discipline, new types of small loans, business loans, and consumer financial services can be developed.
This is the main lesson from the path Amitabh Chaudhry showed at Axis Bank — in the future of banking, competition and cooperation will move together. Banks and fintechs do not need to “eat” each other. They can work together to build a bigger market.
In India, Amitabh led Axis Bank out of crisis and moved it towards a digital partnership.
In Nepal’s banking industry, who has the ability to become an Amitabh Chaudhry? Who will be the first to walk this path with determination?
