Kumar Mangalam Birla on the strategic importance of the financial services business to the Aditya Birla Group
Q. You’ve not got the banking licence you’ve applied for. In that context, what are your plans for the financial services business?
The fact that we didn’t get a bank [licence] was hugely disappointing, but one has to move on. We’ve increased the thrust on the NBFC and our growth plans are more aggressive now than they were at the time of contemplating a bank.
I think it’s about the whole portfolio of financial services. It captures and is in sync with the major trends in the economy —whether it’s about increasing infrastructure, demography, societal trends, double incomes and more nuclear families, more consciousness about areas like life insurance. And slowly also getting into infrastructure financing. It’s becoming larger, and our ability to take larger bets, therefore, is going up. But at the same time, the operations in terms of the back end are robust. I find that the quality of the book in the case of the NBFC for example, or infra, is very sound.
So we’ve focussed as much—if not a little more—on quality, than on just growing the business. We’ve got a great platform now with the NBFC, life insurance, the mutual fund, private equity. This is a very interesting business to be in.
(This story appears in the 26 June, 2015 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)