The banking sector in India is transforming and Kotak Mahindra Bank is leading the charge with a bold new vision. Speaking to Storyboard18’s Delshad Irani, Rohit Bhasin, President & CMO at Kotak Mahindra Bank and Kedarswamy Ravangave, EVP of Marketing at Kotak Mahindra Bank, discussed the strategy and philosophy behind their new campaign ‘Hausla Hai Toh Ho Jayega.’

Below are the excerpts of the discussion.

Q: Consumers, aspirations, everything is changing. Access is changing. Now, within this massive transformation taking place, where do you see Kotak and where do you see Kotak Mahindra Bank’s story fitting in?

Bhasin: For Kotak Mahindra Bank it’s been a transformational year. We had a change in leadership. It has been 23 years in existence for the bank and in the history of Indian banking, I think that’s kind of new. And we are ourselves scripting what is the next 20 years of the bank going to be.

I think banking in the past used to be more transactional, just about money. The bigger role that it is playing and it has to play is, how is it becoming more relevant in the lives of people, in helping them achieve their aims and aspirations? So, from the point of money just being about the need, to I have dreams and if I have the backing, I can bring those dreams to life and how can banking play a bigger role in doing that? It’s more about fulfilling aspirations is where I think the whole banking is shifting from being transactional to being more life-changing is where I see it.

Q: Which brings me, of course, to the genesis of this new brand philosophy approach. What were some of the insights in forming this new approach?

Ravangave: If you look at the overall story in India and the way Indians are feeling or things are changing, I think, there is a very firm belief that it’s our decade. And as I keep saying this, whenever you go to a college or talk to anyone in the college, you hardly see them saying that I want a good job. MNCs are dated now. And they really want to start something of their own. And it stems from a strong belief within that we have arrived and there is something that we can really do.

And in that journey, while you want to achieve your dreams, there is a belief that you can have your own audacious dreams and achieve it, there is also vulnerability. And that vulnerability is really about, while you do that, you need partners. And partners, whether emotional partners, whether they are financial partners or people whom you could partner with on your functional expertise. And I think that’s the space that we realised that is something that you could probably take up. And if you see where banks are shifting is that banks for too long have operated into an eligibility space- either eligible to a loan, eligible to being part of a program, so on and so forth, to banks, which are now going to be about possibilities. And the moment you change that reference from eligibility to possibility, there comes the role of a bank, there comes the role of an institution, which is here to really help you back what you’re really trying to achieve.

Bhasin: When we started this journey, one question that we were trying to answer is, what does the Kotak brand stand for? And to do that, we went back into our roots. While we had become a very inclusive brand, but somewhere we kind of lost a bit of the financial expertise that the brand had always stood for. We went back into the roots, and we realised that, that was what was the core DNA of the brand. Uday Kotak built this financial institution, this bank, from his own story. He was a guy who had nothing, and he built into this big organisation, audacious dreams, and had someone to back those audacious dreams and build the brand and build the bank. And somewhere we saw that that was really the core DNA of the brand.

When we went and understood this further, you actually see three types of Indians, as I call them. There is the common man for whom the security money is the most important thing. And there is the arrived, who’s kind of made enough money, it’s all about wealth creation and legacy planning. But there is this huge belly of India which I call the aspiring Indian. And this is the Indian who’s out there to re-script the story of his or her life. It doesn’t matter from what station does he or she come from, but she fundamentally believes in her own potential and this growth story called India.

What has happened in the last 10 years has given Indians the confidence that they can dare to dream. And it’s not just about, you dreaming, but actually have the conviction to fulfil those dreams. But what they really need is a partner. Someone who can back them in this journey. And that is where we felt that our role could uniquely come because that was really what was in our DNA.

And I define this person, as the person who has this ‘ho jayega’ attitude. It doesn’t matter where I come from, doesn’t matter whether I have access to those resources or not, whether you’re the son of a cab driver, or you could be amongst the richest people in India, you have your dreams, and each of those dreams needs a backing to help you achieve those dreams. And that is where we said Kotak can play a role in the lives of these customers. And that is where our philosophy and our proposition of ‘Hausla Hai Toh Ho Jayega’. If you have the courage to dream, we will be the people to back you. We will be the harness, which will kind of back you to help you achieve your dreams.

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