HDFC Bank, one of India's premier banks, has won the Asian Banker's Best Retail Bank in India 2008 award. The bank has won this award for the second consecutive year after beating a host of other competitors in Asia Pacific, Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and Central Asia on a range of parameters.

The jury of the Asian Banker's Excellence Award mentions various parameters for HDFC bagging the award. These included perception among peers and in the marketplace, annual financial performance, sustainability and transparency in strategy, ethicality, sales capability, risk management processes, technology and efficiency, penetration and efficiency of distribution channels, and people's skills.

The Bank scored particularly high on Risk Management, Sales Capability and people skills.

"HDFC Bank leads all competitors in the South Asian retail financial services industry on a range of measures- particularly in annual financial performance and sustainability of business," a magazine said in its September 2008 special edition.

The magazine also recognized HDFC Bank for its "strengthened direct sales capabilities and improved cross selling, which resulted in a spike in second product penetration amongst liability customers."

The Asian Banker's Excellence in Retail financial Services awards are held in high regard by the financial services sector and are most prestigious banking industry awards in Asia. The awards were based on a detailed evaluation of banks on a wide-ranging performance assessment conducted by a distinguished panel of international banking experts.

According to the Asian Banker, the annual Awards recognize the banks that have been simplifying their processes and launching innovative products.

HDFC Bank is primarily in the business of providing home loans. Besides this bank has a wide range of commercial and transactional banking services and treasury products to wholesale and retail customers. For the corporate customers the bank provides cash management services with vendor and distributor finance for facilitating superior supply chain management. Bank also deals in wide array of loan products including Auto Loans, Loans against marketable securities, Personal Loans and Loans for Two-wheelers. For the retail customers bank provides Depository Participant (DP) services to let the customers hold their investments in electronic form.

Currently the bank has 758 branches, 1,716 ATMs, in 329 cities in India, and all branches of the bank are linked on an online real-time basis. Over a decade of its operations from August 1994, HDFC Bank has been recognized, rated and awarded by a number of organizations.