Kotak Bank CEO tops private banker salaries with ₹13cr payout
What's the story
The CEOs of private sector banks have witnessed a 4-12% hike in their salaries for the financial year 2024-25. Among them, Ashok Vaswani, the CEO of Kotak Mahindra Bank, has bagged the highest compensation of ₹12.95 crore for FY25. The hike comes after a three-month period in FY24 when Vaswani drew a total salary of ₹1.62 crore after taking charge on January 1, 2024.
Salary increase
Who earned what?
HDFC Bank's CEO Sashidhar Jagdishan witnessed the highest salary hike of 11.96% year-on-year. His pay stood at ₹12.08 crore in FY25, excluding ESOPs of 2,12,052 shares granted to him in the previous fiscal year. Axis Bank's CEO Amitabh Chaudhry earned ₹9.11 crore in FY25, a marginal increase od 0.2% from his FY24 salary. IDFC First Bank's CEO V Vaidyanathan took home ₹5.55 crore in FY25, up by 4.53% from last year's ₹5.3 crore.
Compensation details
FY25 salaries may not include variable pay
It is important to note that the FY25 salaries may not include variable pay, which the CEOs are entitled to for that year. This is usually approved by the banking regulator. For instance, Jagdishan received 50% of his cash variable pay for Performance Year 2023-24 in January FY25 as per the bank's annual report. Additionally, stock options were also granted to these CEOs during this period.
Pay gap
Public vs private sector bank CEOs
The long-standing disparity between private and public sector bank chiefs continued to exist even in FY25. For instance, Jagdishan's salary was still double that of the combined salaries of the top 10 state-owned banks' chiefs. The combined take-home salaries of these top 10 PSU bank heads stood at ₹5.13 crore in FY25, up from ₹4.46 crore in FY24.