Indian banking conference at the ISB:

Match between social good and competitive performance

The Centre for Analytical Finance (CAF) at the Indian School of Business (ISB) hosted the Indian Banking Conference, which brought together financial experts, academic researchers who research the banking industry, top officials and business heads from major Public sector banks, Private banks and Foreign banks operating in India, and senior academicians.

The banking fraternity was represented by the RBI, State Bank of India, Axis Bank, Citigroup India, NABARD, Canara Bank etc. The theme of the conference was ‘Economic and Social Responsibilities of Indian Commercial Banks: Is There a Healthy Compromise?’ The Conference promised to address India’s changing role in the new exciting banking landscape, and explore the myriad of opportunities that are evolving in this sector.

Are there ways for the Indian commercial banks to achieve both objectives: performance and social responsibility? This was the question the Conference aimed to find answers to. It was a sort of public platform for the leaders in the banking domain to share experiences and innovations.

It consisted of two panel discussions and a special address. Professor Sankar De, Executive Director, CAF, outlined the moot objective of the Conference. “To find convincing answers about the Indian banking industry,” he said.

Professor De mentioned that the Conference had meshed representatives from the Public sector banks, the private banks and the MNC banks to get a first hand view about challenges faced by each of them, to address the issue of competitiveness of these banks in a global market place, and finally discuss about the social responsibility of the banking sector as a whole.

The first panel discussion on ‘Competitiveness of Indian Commercial Banks’, boasted of an eminent panel comprising OP Bhatt, Chairman, State Bank of India PJ Nayak, Chairman ,CEO, Axis Bank, Sanjay Nayar, CEO, Citigroup India and Joydeep Sengupta, Director, McKinsey Co. The panel moderator was Professor De himself.

The panel addressed several concerns such as how the performance of Indian banks compare to their global counterparts, what is the role of the Indian banking sector in the Indian economy at large, what are the concerns of the public sector banks, why do private sectors have an edge, how do new bank compete with incumbent banks, should banking be ownership neutral etc. “Banks do not exist in vacuum.

They make a large contribution to the country’s GDP growth, meets the demand of the growing middle class, contributes to infrastructure spending, and reaches out the semi-urban and rural areas,” said Bhatt.

He pointed out that public sector banks also serve a number of social and macro-economic objectives like financial inclusion, agri-lending, government debt, stock market support etc.

(HHS)