Indian Banking - The Road Ahead 22nd October, 2008 Taj Mahal Palace & Tower, Mumbai, India

With recent measures announced by the Government and the Reserve Bank of India towards opening up of India’s banking sector, it will be challenging for all concerned parties to cope with the new rules of the game. The domestic banks may face lot of competition from the new entrants i.e. the foreign banks in the retail front. There is a lot of talk that consolidation in the banking sector is inevitable. The international banks too would find themselves in an alien land.

In this new environment, managing risk would become one of the most important issues for regulators and financial institutions. These institutions have over the years recognized the cost of ignoring risk. The new Basel Accord will allow banks and bank supervisors to evaluate properly the various risks that banks face and realign regulatory capital more closely with underlying risks. There would be increased focus on transparency and market disclosure, critical information describing the risk profile, capital structure and capital adequacy.

Is the time ripe for us to adopt the new norms? How easy or difficult would it be to realign all their process? Where will banks raise their required capitals from? These are just some of the raging issues that the banking world is faced with today. It is in this regard that the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT) invites the strategists to provide their invaluable inputs. This seminar is another effort by the institute to offer the leaders a platform to share their views.