Private sector lender, Kotak Mahindra Bank has indicated ambitions of increasing its branch count by another 200 in order to increase its penetration across the country over the next fiscal.

The bank had recently announced the aim of increasing NRI customer base in a bid to attract more high net worth individuals (HNIs).

Uday Kotak, vice-chairman & MD of the bank however clearly stated that the bank was not intending towards mass marketing strategy."It depends on how you define mass affluent. For us, we define mass affluent as anyone who has an annual household income of Rs 5 lakh compared to Rs 4.5 lakh when we started in 2003," he said.

The bank has recently entered into a strategic alliance with Japanese company Sumitomo for spreading investment banking operations in Japan. "The world is about alliances. Now, you don't need a joint venture partner, you need a network partner," commented Uday.