ICICI Bank wins ‘Bank of the Year’ at 27th edition of BT-KPMG Best Banks & Fintechs Awards

Leading private sector lender ICICI Bank took home the ‘Bank of the Year’ award, while national lender State Bank of India became the first recipient of the ‘Special Jury Award for Consistent Transformation’ at the 27th edition of the BT-KPMG Best Banks & Fintechs Awards, for which ceremony was held in Mumbai on Friday.  

The 27th edition of the BT-KPMG Best Banks & Fintechs Awards saw thirteen winners – five quantitative awards and eight jury awards – being felicitated by Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari, K V Kamath, Chairperson of the National Bank for Infrastructure Financing and Development and India Today Group Chairman and Editor-In-Chief Aroon Purie.  

ICICI Bank also bagged the award for ‘Best Bank in Innovation’, while public sector lender Bank of Baroda won both ‘Best Bank in Fintech Initiative’ as well as ‘Best Bank in Talent & Workforce’.  

Online payments gateway PayU was adjudged the ‘Best Fintech in Payments’, while SaaS-based B2B fintech software company Perfios won the award for ‘Best Fintech in Value Added Services’.  

The country’s largest private lender HDFC Bank was adjudged the Best Large Indian Bank, Bank of Maharashtra the ‘Best Mid-sized Indian Bank’ and Tamilnad Mercantile Bank the ‘Best Small Indian Bank’. Multinational bank JP Morgan India won the ‘Best Large Foreign Bank’ award, while AU Small Finance Bank won the award for the ‘Best Small Finance Bank’.  

State Bank of India’s former chairperson Arundhati Bhattacharya was also felicitated with the prestigious ‘Lifetime Achievement Award’ .

The Business Today Best Banks Awards are the most sought after in the industry because they combine quantitative ranking utilising the most comprehensive set of parameters with qualitative ranking based on bank inputs examined by a super-eminent jury panel. The jury was led by K.V. Kamath, Chairperson of the National Bank for Infrastructure Financing and Development. Other members were Arun Kumar Purwar, former chairman, State Bank of India; Alice G Vaidyan, former chairman and managing director, GIC Re; A P Hota, former MD& CEO, NPCI Ltd; and Avinash Gupta, MD& CEO, Dun & Bradstreet.

Held at central Mumbai’s St Regis Hotel, the awards session began in the evening with Minister of State for Finance Bhagwat Kishanrao Karad speaking about "serving the country" and "reinforcing the backbone of India's economy." This was followed by a fireside chat with Gadkari on “Investing in Infrastructure to Drive Economic Growth”.

Gadkari and Kamath also unveiled the cover of Business Today’s latest issue profiling the best banks in the country.

The presentation ceremony wrapped up a day-long Business Today Banking & Economy summit which saw the best minds in the economy, banking, and financial markets debate and talk about the future course of the domestic economy facing global headwinds, the role of banks and non-banks, digitisation, and sustainable finance challenges.

The day-long summit comprising a dozen fireside chats and panel discussions was kicked off by Amitabh Chaudhry, the MD & CEO of the country's third-largest private sector bank Axis Bank. He spoke on ‘Banking on a High: The Big Turnaround & Challenges Ahead’.

As the day progressed, sessions with RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das, former BRICS bank chief K V Kamath as well as sessions involving former SBI chairman A K Purwar and Rajnish Kumar proved to be the highlights of the conclave.