Mumbai, India-headquartered Kotak Mahindra Bank has signed an agreement to acquire Frankfurt-based Deutsche Bank’s retail banking, affluent private banking, and wealth management businesses in India. The deal is valued at approximately $29.8 million.
Deutsche Bank has been operating in India since 1980, with branches in 16 cities and nearly 13,000 employees, making it one of the largest foreign banks in the country. The bank offers a range of services including corporate banking, investment banking, and private banking.
The transaction covers about $2.9 billion in loans, $1.6 billion in deposits, and $1.1 billion in assets under management, serving nearly 150,000 customers with support from around 1,000 employees. These employees are expected to transition to Kotak once the deal closes.
For Kotak, the acquisition is part of its strategy to expand through selective transactions, strengthening its core banking operations and enhancing its presence in affluent and SME segments. Deutsche Bank, meanwhile, is streamlining operations under its Global Hausbank strategy, focusing on ultra-high-net-worth clients and areas where it has stronger competitive positioning.
The deal is expected to close by September 2027, subject to regulatory approvals. Once completed, it is projected to be ROE accretive for Kotak and CET1 accretive for Deutsche Bank.
Executives from both banks emphasized continuity for customers and employees during the transition. Ashok Vaswani, CEO of Kotak, highlighted the commercial sense of the acquisition, while Deutsche Bank’s Kaushik Shaparia, CEO for the Deutsche Bank Group, India noted India’s growing integration into the global economy reinforces its position as a core market for Deutsche Bank.
This move follows Kotak’s earlier acquisition of Standard Chartered Bank’s personal loan portfolio in India, underscoring its ongoing inorganic growth strategy.
