Kotak Mahindra Bank to Hire Up to 500 Engineers to Power Tech Push

Kotak Mahindra Bank is stepping up its technology push by planning to hire as much as 500 engineers, as it looks to strengthen its long-term competitiveness in an increasingly digital banking landscape.

The private sector lender is actively targeting talent from large global technology companies and rival banks, with the aim of building what it describes as a technology company with a banking licence, Kotak's CTO Bhavnish Lathia told Bloomberg.

According to Lathia, Kotak's technology workforce already numbers over 2,000 people, many of whom come from global technology giants like Alphabet and Apple, financial services majors like Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase. The bank reportedly sees a strong advantage in blending deep technology skills with banking domain expertise.

The private lender's tech drive gathered pace after RBI's technology restrictions imposed in 2024 was lifted. The restriction was imposed on Kotak as RBI found gaps in its IT systems and technology governance. RBI had barred Kotak from onboarding new customers through digital channels (like online and mobile banking). It also stopped the bank from issuing new credit cards.

Since then, Kotak has gone more than a year without any unplanned outages in its core banking system, even as transaction volumes surged 60-70% year-on-year (YoY). The bank has also sharply improved app performance, cutting transaction processing time to under 500 milliseconds, from several seconds earlier, according to the report.

Lathia said nearly 1,800 engineers already come from the global tech and financial firms Kotak is targeting, and the bank plans to add another 300-500 engineers in the financial year 2026-27 (FY26).

Kotak is also choosing to open fewer physical branches than some peers, while steadily raising its technology spending. Tech investments now make up about 13% of operating expenses, up from around 10% a few years ago. The goal is to reportedly use automation and scale to keep costs under control even as business volumes rise.

AI is central to this strategy as within months, almost every function at the bank will reportedly be "AI-infused", with hundreds of engineers using AI tools to generate code and nearly 35,000 employees using AI in their daily work. Meanwhile, Kotak already uses AI and machine learning to monitor transactions, detect unusual activity and strengthen cybersecurity.

Notably, this aggressive technology push comes even as the bank reported muted margin growth in the December quarter of FY26. Kotak posted a profit after tax of around ₹3,450 crore, up 4.3% year-on-year (YoY). On a consolidated basis, net profit rose 5% YoY and 10% QoQ to ₹4,920 crore.

Net interest income grew 5.1% YoY to ₹7,560 crore, but net interest margin remained flat at 4.54% QoQ.