India’s top women bankers feature among most powerful women outside the US

State Bank of India’s Chief Arundhati Bhattacharya, ICICI head Chanda Kochhar and Axis Bank CEO Shikha Sharma featured in the Fortune's '50 Most Powerful Women International' list, which ranks women based outside the US.

The Fortune list was topped by Banco Santander's boss Ana Botin.

SBI’s Bhattacharya came second in the list while Kochhar and Sharma were at fifth and 19th spots, respectively.

"Bhattacharya's profile has risen during her three-year tenure atop India's largest bank," Fortune said.

SBI Chairperson Bhattacharya, who was widely speculated to succeed Raghuram Rajan as Governor of the Reserve Bank of India, has continued her "high-profile battle with the bank's bad loans, while courting overseas partners to invest in the stressed assets.

In May, she also orchestrated SBI's merger with six other groups, a plan that, once complete, will result in one of largest lenders in Asia.

"Though her term leading the bank is set to expire in October, most expect the government will extend her time so she can see the efforts through," Fortune said.

ICICI Bank Managing Director and CEO Kochhar, 54, is regarded even by rival bankers as a "visionary", Fortune said.

"After seven years at the helm of India's largest private sector lender, with consolidated assets of $139 billion, she has overhauled the nation's consumer retail business.

"Though bad loans took a toll on income growth this year, Kochhar has engaged turnaround experts to help ditch those distressed assets," Fortune said, highlighting her efforts to boost the bank's digital growth and enable female employees to work from home for a year.

Sharma, 57, has grown Axis from an underrepresented bank to the nation's fastest growing private sector lender, with revenue up 15 per cent to $7.9 billion in 2015 and nearly 3000 branches across 1,800 cities and towns, Fortune said.

"First quarter profit this year was hurt by a spike in bad loans, but Sharma deserves accolades for publicising a 'watch list' she created to monitor four per cent of the bank's potentially-troubled assets," it said.