Mumbai: A homegrown Indian company will for the first time rank among the world’s most valuable banks after completing a merger, marking a new challenger to the largest American and Chinese lenders occupying the coveted top spots.
The tieup of HDFC Bank Ltd. and Housing Development Finance Corp. creates a lender that ranks fourth in equity market capitalisation, behind JPMorgan Chase & Co., Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Ltd. and Bank of America Corp., according to data compiled by Bloomberg. It’s valued at about $172 billion.
With the merger likely effective July 1, the new HDFC Bank entity will have around 120 million customers – that’s greater than the population of Germany. It’ll also increase its branch network to over 8,300 and boast of total headcount of more than 177,000 employees.
HDFC surged ahead of prominent banks such as HSBC Holdings Plc and Citigroup. Furthermore, it outshines its Indian peers, State Bank of India and ICICI Bank, both in terms of market capitalisation, with the former at about $62 billion and the latter at approximately $79 billion as of June 22.
HDFC surges ahead of banks including HSBC Holdings Plc and Citigroup Inc. The bank will also leave behind its Indian peers State Bank of India and ICICI Bank, with market capitalizations of about $62 billion and $79 billion, respectively, as of June 22.
“Worldwide there are very few banks, which can at this scale and size, still aspire to double over a period of four years,” Suresh Ganapathy, head of financial services research for India at Macquarie Group Ltd.’s brokerage unit, said in a Bloomberg TV interview. The bank expects to grow at 18% to 20%, there is very good visibility in earnings growth, and they plan to double their branches in the next four years, he said. “HDFC Bank will remain a pretty formidable institution.”
