India Financials: How retail underwriting works - Key takeaways from our webinar

Research evidence excerpt

India Financials: How retail underwriting works - Key takeaways from our webinar

17 June 2026

India Financials

India Financials: How retail underwriting works - Key takeaways

from our webinar

Dominance in retail lending has long been central to the investment case for private sector Pranav Gundlapalle

+91 226 842 1407 banks (PVBs) in India, premised on an assumed edge in underwriting versus PSBs and a

pranav.gundlapalle@bernsteinsg.com structural funding advantage over NBFCs. Yet, recent market share trends and comparable

asset quality outcomes across lender cohorts raise a more fundamental question: how

Ishan Mittal durable is this underwriting edge in today’s environment (link)? We hosted a webinar with

+91 226 842 1442

ishan.mittal@bernsteinsg.com a senior risk practitioner, Mr. Bodhisattwa Gupta, to move beyond surface-level metrics

and unpack how retail underwriting actually functions on the ground. We outline the key

Anirudh Gupta takeaways below.

+91 226 842 1456

anirudh.gupta@bernsteinsg.com Underwriting remains differentiated, but the edge is increasingly subtle in prime

segments: While underwriting capabilities across top-tier lenders have converged after

years of model evolution, meaningful differentiation still exists, particularly beyond the

top few players. Institutional memory, segment-specific expertise, and judgment in “grey

zone” cases create a gap that is hard to replicate quickly. Even with identical data access, a

new lender could see 2–2.5x higher credit costs initially, highlighting the persistence of a

learning curve. Thus, underwriting is not fully commoditized, even if outcome dispersion has

narrowed in prime portfolios.

Data depth and effective usage, not just model sophistication, drive underwriting