Uday Kotak, who is the executive vice chairman and managing director of Kotak Mahindra Bank, is the lone top private bank executive who has received a hike in remuneration in the financial year 2018 as against last year. This development has not come as shock for the banking sector as the previous year has witnessed mounting bad loans and closer surveillance by the Reserve Bank of India.
The annual report of Kotak Mahindra bank shows that Uday Kotak received a pay hike of 11.02 percent - Rs 2.92 crore - in the fiscal year ended March 2018, from Rs 2.63 crore in the year ended March 2017, mainly due to a similar rise in basic salary.
Apart from Kotak, annual reports of major private banks -- Axis Bank, HDFC Bank and Yes Bank -- have been published and the compensation of all their CEOs has gone down during the financial year ended in March 2018.
Annual reports of IndusInd Bank and ICICI Bank are yet to be published.
Interestingly, Kotak's remuneration has been the lowest among private bank CEOs. Rana Kapoor, Yes Bank CEO, was handed over a cut of 22.12 percent in his salary to Rs 5.53 crore in March 2018, from Rs 6.87 crore last year.
HDFC Bank MD Aditya Puri remains the top-earning bank executive despite a 4.07 percent drop in his remuneration in the fiscal year 2018. Puri's total incomes in FY18 slumped to Rs 9.64 crore from Rs 10.05 crore a year ago.
The outgoing Axis Bank CEO, Shikha Sharma, also saw a drop in her remuneration. Her income in FY18 dropped by 11.5 percent to Rs 4.77 crore from Rs 5.39 crore in March 2017, chiefly because of a sharp fall in her variable pay.
Even though these private bank CEOs are reporting a drop in their remuneration, they are still earning in multiples of their public sector counterparts.
State Bank of India Chairman Rajnish Kumar received Rs 14.25 lakh in salary and allowances in FY 18.
Arundhati Bhattacharya, who was chairman of SBI, earned Rs 14.69 lakh in salary and allowances, taking the total combined salary for the SBI chairman to Rs 28.24 lakh in fiscal 2018, which is about 10 percent of the Rs 2.92 crore earned by the lowest-paid MD of a private bank, Uday Kotak.
