Axis Bank CEO says large lenders are stepping up their fight for fintech market share
Axis Bank CEO Amitabh Chaudhry says well-capitalised banks will continue investing aggressively in technology over the next five years, with only a small group able to sustain the spend. He expects banks and fintechs to compete, partner and coexist.
What happened
Axis Bank CEO Amitabh Chaudhry says large lenders will keep investing to regain fintech market share, leveraging scale and capital. He expects only a handful of
Key facts
- 5-7 banks
- 4-5 institutions
- five years
Why this matters
Prioritise partnerships or acquisitions that add differentiated technology, distribution or data capabilities, as major banks increasingly build internally while reserving deals for strategically scarce assets.
What to watch
- Axis Bank and peers' technology-expense growth versus operating-expense guidance.
- App engagement, digital sales mix, payment volumes and merchant-acquiring share for major banks.
- New bank-fintech co-lending, embedded-finance or acquisition announcements.
- RBI actions on digital lending, payment aggregation, data sharing, outsourcing and fintech compliance.
- Evidence of funding stress, consolidation or rising customer-acquisition costs among consumer and SME fintechs.
- Deposit growth and cost-of-funds trends, which determine banks' capacity to subsidize digital expansion.
- Accelerate acquisition or partnership activity in payments, SME platforms, fraud prevention, wealth-tech and AI-led underwriting.
- Expand proprietary mobile-app capabilities and pre-approved credit offers using transaction and deposit data.
- Shift fintech partnerships toward exclusive distribution, co-lending, banking-as-a-service and embedded-finance structures.
- Increase technology hiring and vendor commitments, particularly in cloud migration, cybersecurity, customer-data platforms and generative-AI service automation.
- Use pricing, rewards and merchant incentives to regain primary-account and payment-volume share.