In the case of life insurance, the bank currently has a partnership with Max Life and LIC. Now, the rule allows an open architecture with up to three insurers. The private bank will at some point look at adding a third partner as well, its managing director and chief executive officer Shikha Sharma said at CII’s banking technology summit.

The Rs1,225.10 crore net profit compares with Rs2,154.28 crore posted a year ago, and Rs579.57 crore seen in the December quarter.

Three years after getting into the segment, the bank touched 1 million borrowers mark recently and all of them are women who have availed of credit through the joint lending group model, Axis Bank’s retail banking head Rajiv Anand said.

It’s also the first time that loans have been sold to an asset reconstruction firm at book value without a haircut, said the people cited above.

Reacting to the development, the stock gained as much as 2.6% to Rs 450 on the BSE, and was the leading Sensex gainer.

"Return on equity for the sector will struggle and there will be very material divergence in growth of book value per share, which will continue to create divergent stock price performance," the report highlights. What’s interesting is that the investment downgrade undertaken by the brokerage on India’s three largest private banks follows a different rationale in each case.

The new ETF would be larger than the Central Public Sector Enterprises ETF, a fund unveiled in 2014 that’s made up of the government’s shares in state-owned companies, the people said, asking not to be identified as a final decision regarding size and timing of the latest sales hasn’t been made yet.

SBI, according to a source, has also been asked to reconsider charges it proposes to levy on cash transactions and ATM withdrawals over specified limits.

While Kingfisher House will be put under the hammer for the fourth time after three failed attempts, Kingfisher Villa is being put on sale for the third time.