CHENNAI: CUB on Wednesday announced that Vijay Anandh is set to take charge as the managing director and chief executive officer of the Kumbakonam-headquartered bank from May 1.
Anandh succeeds N Kamakodi, who concludes a distinguished 15-year tenure at the helm, a release from City Union Bank said.
Anandh, who brings 28 years of banking experience, joined CUB in 2023 as executive president and was elevated as executive director the next year. Prior to CUB, he served as business & collections head for retail assets at RBL Bank.
“We are not looking to bring in any drastic changes to a system that has seen robust growth over the last 15 years. There are exciting times ahead for the industry, and we do not want to disrupt the status quo.”
At a press conference here on Wednesday, Anandh said focus on MSME segment, which generates 50 to 55 per cent of the bank’s business, would continue while gold contributes about 29-30 per cent. The retail focus would be backed by secured lending.
“We have not seen any stress or swing in MSME accounts due to the West Asia war,” he said, acknowledging that the 24 per cent growth from MSME business has come down, leading the bank to closely monitor the situation.
To a query, Anandh said it has embarked on a ‘one bank’ relationship strategy, which was the basis to introduce the credit card to woo the youth population. Also, the hubs at Mumbai, Ahmedabad and Delhi were aimed at enabling decisions in the respective markets.
On corporate lending, Kamakodi said the decision to limit exposure in 2002-04 would be reviewed. In 2000-01, when corporate lending was less risky and a means to accelerate growth, all banks had joined the bandwagon. But having met the peer bankers apart from investment bankers in Mumbai as a deputy manager then, the large number of failures due to Enron and Dabhol debacles led CUB to rethink.
“The minimum corporate lending ticket size was Rs 15 crore which equalled our annual profit then and not risk-free either,” he said, adding in his 15-year tenure, the bank had avoided pitfalls as the peers took 5-6 years to clean up their balance sheets.
“There was no compulsion to enter the corporate lending space... fortunately, the decision proved right as stability, progress of the bank shows,” he said.
Following the Board’s decision, Kamakodi will take over as chairman of the CUB Foundation, the bank’s philanthropic arm. On the bank’s performance in FY26, the release said CUB reported net profit of Rs 1,326 crore, registering an 18 per cent growth year-on-year.