Karur Vysya Bank pivots to growth after decade of balance-sheet cleanup

Karur Vysya Bank has spent the past decade pruning its wholesale exposure and repairing asset quality. Under MD & CEO B. Ramesh Babu, the lender is now shifting strategy: it plans to scale corporate loans from 14% to 20% of its loan book over two years, marking a deliberate re-entry into a segment it had intentionally downsized to clean up NPAs.

The bank's growth push extends across four channels. It is targeting the affordable housing segment (₹20 lakh to ₹50 lakh ticket range) to improve yields, launching an in-house credit card business to capture high-margin retail spend and cross-sell to depositors, and scaling microloans through co-lending partnerships and business correspondents.