Dear stakeholders,

Subject: Introduction to IDFC FIRST Bank

I am delighted to introduce our Bank with you. IDFC FIRST Bank is a new age Universal Bank in India built on the foundations of Ethical Banking, Digital Banking, and Social Good Banking. We are building a world class bank in India.

As part of our ethical banking approach, the Bank applies a "Near and Dear" Test to its products, so that the employees of the Bank serve only such products they'd want for their own loved ones. We believe income earned unethically is not worth earning.

Therefore, we avoid complicated descriptions, calculations, and legalese that customers don’t understand. We abolished all charges on Savings Accounts including for Debit Cards, IMPS, RTGS, NEFT, Cash Deposit, “Non-Home branch” access, Cash withdrawals at ATMs and at branches, 3^rd party transaction charges at branches, SMS Alert, Cheque book, Demand Drafts, Pay-order, duplicate statement, and all such services that are usually charged in the market. We follow the principle that we won’t touch your bank account for one reason or the other. We are the first and only bank in India till date to do so.

We are the first bank to offer monthly credit on savings accounts. Our credit cards have no hidden charges. We offer Lifetime Free without minimum spend conditions, never-expiring rewards points, zero interest on cash withdrawal at ATMs, dynamic low APR and much more. Fees if any are transparent and described neatly in a manner a common person can understand. Every product offered by the bank is customer friendly, most often the best in the industry.

As part of technology led banking, we have built a modern technology stack and built an advanced mobile app with 250+ features such as Google like Search, Goal based investing, MF investment assistance, electric-speed payments, Account Aggregator, MF Aggregator, Personal Finance Manager, Auto categorisation of spends, single app for personal and business banking, UPI on Credit Cards, travel and shop, bill and recharges, deals and reward redemptions, which offer great convenience to our customers. For business customers we offer on-the-go bulk payments, ability to pay income tax, GST, customs duty, and connected banking with ERP solutions.

As part of the Social Banking theme, we are proud to share that our business model is naturally geared to social banking. We have developed unique capabilities for financing bottom of pyramid customers with consistently high asset quality. The Bank has financed over 40 million customers including 0.3 million SMEs, 0.9 million livelihood (cattle loans), 16 million lifestyle improvement loans (for laptops, washing machine, etc.), 1 million sanitation loans (toilets, water fittings), 6.5 million mobility loans (2-wheelers and cars), and home financing (over 100,000 homes), and 15 million loans to 4.3 million women-entrepreneurs. We also offer other retail and rural loans such as Kisan Credit Cards, harvest financing, gold loans etc. 

We are a Universal Bank, and offer end to end Corporate Banking, Trade Finance such as issuance of LCs & BGs, SBLC, Packing Credit, Pre-shipment and Post-shipment Finance, Treasury products including risk hedging solutions like Forwards, Swaps, Options, and other Forex Solutions, SME Banking, Wealth Management, NRI banking, Cash Management, Nostro & Vostro account operations, Escrow facilities, Correspondent Banking, Fastag, Toll-acquiring, Dealer Finance and Purchase/Sales Invoice discounting.

ESG Goals: The Bank is incorporating ESG in every aspect of working and has high ESG scores. We are grateful for the opportunity to build such a unique bank in India. We believe to create a new age, ethical and world class Bank for our country is a great privilege of our lifetimes for all of us. We thank you for your support to us.

V Vaidyanathan
MD and CEO