HDFC Bank Shines as India's Best SME Bank

HDFC Bank was selected as the India's best bank for SMEs at the Asiamoney Best Bank Awards 2021. In its evaluation the magazine states that on its website HDFC Bank's transformation of its micro, small and medium-sized enterprise (MSME) business in the past few years has made it a worthy winner of this award.

The Hong Kong-based financial magazine’s Annual Best Banks survey, aims to spot out which banks in each market have outperformed across a range of core banking activities in the past 12 months.

Asiamoney's award decisions has been made by a team comprising senior journalists post obtaining a detailed submissions from market participants and in conjunction with research into the banking and capital markets by editorial committee. The team has also visited each country or territory to meet leading bankers and to gather client and competitor feedback.

Asiamoney states, "The numbers are impressive. Advances to MSMEs stood at Rs.2.02 trillion ($28 billion) as of December 31, 2020, up 38 percent from a year earlier and representing a compound annual growth rate of 23 percent in the past six years, which HDFC says makes it India's second-largest bank for MSME lending. The bank's management also believes the MSME lending book will soon be larger than the bank's corporate book."

In its wholesale banking department, the MSME business became the second-largest revenue contributor last year. But the push towards SME clients under Rahul Shukla, group head of corporate banking and business banking, has not come at the expense of quality, it added.

Asset quality has continues to remain strong amid the impact of Covid-19 on businesses. The bank's MSME-related non-performing asset (NPA) ratio has noted to be 0.7 percent in December 2020, down from 1.33 percent in March 2020 and 1.16 percent in March 2019.

Rahul states, "We are so excited to see our work in the SME business getting recognized and are happy that we have been able to contribute to this important sector," adding that SMEs are the engines of economic growth and association with them helps in overall prosperity of the nation.