About our MD & CEO

Mr. V. Vaidyanathan

Managing Director & CEO

Vaidyanathan aims to build IDFC FIRST Bank into a world-class Indian bank—guided by ethics, powered by technology, and a force for social good. He became MD & CEO of IDFC FIRST Bank in December 2018 following the merger of Capital First with IDFC Bank.

He worked with Citibank (1990–2000) and ICICI Bank (2000–2010), where he built a large retail banking business, including CASA & retail deposits of ₹1 trillion, a 1,411-branch network, and a ₹1.35 trillion ($30b) retail lending book.

He was appointed to the ICICI Bank Board in 2006 at age 38 and served till 2009, then as MD & CEO of ICICI Prudential Life (2009–10).

In 2010, pursuing an entrepreneurial opportunity, he left ICICI to acquire a ~10% stake in a small NBFC with a ₹780 crore ($140m) market cap, aiming to build a bank. He pledged his home and the acquired stock to fund the acquisition.

He rebranded the NBFC as Capital First and pivoted it from large ticket real estate financing (ticket size $10–30m) to tech-driven retail & MSME lending (ticket size $1,000–₹1,00,000), using analytical scorecards to finance chemists, kirana stores, restaurants, and consumer items like laptops and washing machines. In 2012, he demonstrated the analytics-driven credit model to Private Equity firms and raised equity of ₹810 crore ($140m), and became Chairman & CEO.

Capital First’s retail book grew from ₹94 crore ($14m) in 2010 to ₹29,600 crore ($4b) by 2018, financing 7 million customers, with strong asset quality. It turned from a ₹30 crore loss into a ₹358 crore profit, share price rose from ₹122 to ₹845, and the market cap grew tenfold from Rs. 780 crore to ₹8,200 crore ($1b).

In 2017, he sold part of his stake to repay the original loan taken to acquire Capital First.

In 2018, he merged Capital First with IDFC Bank to secure a banking license and became MD & CEO of IDFC FIRST Bank.

Since 2019, deposits grew 6X from ₹38,455 crore ($4.6b) to ₹2,42,543 crore ($28b), the loan book 2.4X from ₹1,04,660 crore ($11.5b) to ₹2,41,926 crore ($28b), CASA from 8.6% to 46.9%, and NIM from 1.6% to 6.0%. Bank improved from a loss of ₹1,944 crore loss in FY19 to PAT of ₹2,957 crore ($352m) in FY24, but PAT declined 49% to Rs. 1525 crore due to the impact of the Microfinance business.

He was named Banker of the Year 2023 by Financial Express, EY Entrepreneur of the Year 2022 (Financial Services), CNBC Awaaz Entrepreneur of the Year 2020, Most Inspirational Leveraged Management Buyout 2018 by CFI Awards (UK), and Most Innovative Company 2017 by CNBC Asia. He received awards from India’s Finance Minister in 2024 and 2025.