Bank of Baroda CEO Calls for Scalable, Strong Indian Banks

According to Bank of Baroda’s MD & CEO Debadatta Chand, India must build big, strong financial institutions if it wants to hold its own on the global stage.

Chand says consolidation and scale are key pillars in strengthening the Indian banking sector. He emphasizes that merging banks should be viewed as policy-driven opportunities for building scale and strategic capability—rather than burdensome integrations. The bank’s approach to this vision is deeply rooted in its ambition to boost its footprint in both domestic and international markets.

On the business growth side, Chand underscores how the RAM segment—retail, agriculture and MSME—is being aggressively expanded. Retail loans are growing at 18-20 %, agriculture at 17 % and MSME around 14 % this year, as the bank moves to lift the RAM share of its total book from 62 % to 65 %. Meanwhile the corporate loan book, domestically ₹4 lakh crore and internationally ₹2.2 lakh crore, offers a sizable base for the bank to scale further.

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Operationally, the bank is pushing ahead with digitalization—loan processing across retail, MSME and corporate segments has been digitized, and “next-gen” branches with hybrid digital-physical models and virtual assistants are on the agenda. Cost management remains a priority, with the bank aiming to maintain a cost-to-income ratio near 48 %, even as margins come under pressure.

From a risk perspective, implementation of the ECL (Expected Credit Loss) framework could cost about 75 bps over the next five years, partly offset by the upcoming Basel III norms..

For the broader industry, the message is clear: banking in India is shifting from being volume-driven to scale-driven, focused on diversification across retail, MSME and agri segments, digital transformation and global competitiveness.