Trade Shows

January 8, 2003
Banking industry on a more level-playing field

MUMBAI -- As the curtain came down on another eventful year, Exhibitions India successfully concluded its annual banking event 'bank.net India 2002' that served as a meeting ground for the financial services industry to showcase its new initiatives, thus exposing the emerging technologies in the banking sector. The event felt the presence of the Ministry of Communications and IT, the Institute for Development and Research in Banking Technology and the VSAT Services Association of India who appreciated the event through their strong support.

According to Prem Behl, MD, Exhibitions India: "As India becomes part of the New World trade order from 2005, Indian banks have no alternative but to join the Internet banking bandwagon to retain their corporate customers. We understand that technology can integrate banks to become a part and parcel of the consumer's lifestyle."

Delivering the inaugural address, Gautam Dalal, chairman and CEO, KPMG India said: "The banking industry is on a more level-playing field today than ever before. The world over and in India, there has been unrelenting regulatory change. Bankers in this space are increasingly being required to harness technology to create competitive barriers."

Need to adopt open financial models
Delivering the keynote address, Henry Chang, consulting director, Computer Associates said: "Efficient delivery of information pertaining to customer needs and preferences will hold the key to success of banking and financial sector players. For servicing customers better, finance companies should have profiles of their customers so that they can track their needs and predict their behavior before offering the products."

Nachiket Mor, executive director, ICICI Bank said, "The biggest challenge for the banking sector is in reaching out to the rural masses through shared technological platforms and bringing down the cost of services."

"Globalisation trends may force banks to adopt open financial models where distribution channels of banks could be outsourced", said Revathi Kasturi, founder and president, Tarang Software Technologies. Shantanu Ghosh, executive VP and COO, Vysya Bank, who was a distinguished panelist during the inaugural session, also shared his expert comments.

The first day of the conference was dedicated to the customer data management that brought in the experts to share their views and comments. "In a customer-centric model, employees will handle the entire relationships and not specific products. This will result in deeper relationships, better cross-sell ratio and increased income from customers," said UTI Bank's vice president-retail, Hemant Kaul.

Speaking at the event, Ravi Goel, senior executive and vice president-business strategy, Web Logic Corporation, mentioned that inconsistent customer management processes, uneconomic sales and service models and insufficient sales force in terms of skills and time are the biggest value destructors for banks.

Ram Subramanian, product specialist, PeopleSoft India said: "Most entities in India are certainly customer-focussed. However, what is missing is the focus on customer relationships. One should understand the customer relationship management (CRM) as a business strategy and just not a technology solution." Debashis Sarkar, head-marketing, Max New York Life Insurance Co. Ltd. said: " A joint venture is not a handshake, its an arranged marriage, and can be successful if both the partners respect what the other player gets to the table."

Speaking in the session on mergers and acquisitions, Sudhir Kapadia, partner, Bharat S Raut & Co., said that in order to give impetus to mergers and acquisitions in the banking sector, the government will have to make certain changes in rules and regulations. Mergers involving foreign banks will have to be made tax-neutral.

"Innovation has become an industry phenomenon and new innovative products do not surprise anyone. Information technology and proliferating delivery platforms are the key drivers," said SBI's chief general manager, TS Bhattacharya. He added that the RBI encourages banks to adopt new technologies and become competitive by global standards. The other speakers were VK Sudhakar, CEO, D2K Technologies India Pvt. Ltd., S Mahesh, associate director, KPMG Consulting and Ramesh Mengwde, MD, Opus Software Solutions Pvt. Ltd.

Risk is inherent in business processes. Key issues regarding risk management were discussed in the third session of day one. The panelists included Sanjay Diwan, executive director, KPMG India, Rostow Ravanan, head-financial services, MindTree Consulting Pvt. Ltd., Madhusudan Subramanian, risk management specialist, SAS India Pvt. Ltd., Joy Uka, associate director, KPMG Consulting Pvt. Ltd. and Venkatesh Krishnan, national manager-enterprise sales, Comsat Max Ltd.

The second day of the conference commenced with the session titled "Emerging technology strategy for competitive decision making." Hargopal Mangipudi, associate VP and head-professional services, Infosys Technologies Ltd., while deliberating on "Technology spending: A new perspective on ROI" said, "Technology becomes a toy if you do not have a proper plan to deploy it." Other speakers at the session were A.Vijay Simha, CEO, Credence Analytics (I) Pvt. Ltd., Venkatesh Iyer, regional director, EMC Information Systems NV; Vibha Agarwal, national manager, Computer Associates India and Suhas Joshi, country champion-IT solutions, Emerson Network Power (India) Pvt. Ltd.

E-payment, security prominent issues
With the desire for online, real-time information growing, e-payment and security issues are gaining prominence. This was discussed in the sessions "Secure banking using PKI technology" and "Banking technologies at work."

Authentication, access control and confidentiality are facilitated through PKI, said Rajeev Wadhwa, COO, Global e-secure Ltd. He added that PKI will ensure online banking in a secure environment for customers, a backend tie-up with online shopping extending banking domains, strengthening of inter-bank transactions and lower transaction costs, without sacrificing trust.

HSBC India-head, global payments and cash management, Arjun Bambawale said, "As payments become electronic, banks and financial institutions, businesses, government and consumers are the ones who will be impacted the most." Other panelists included Vijay Mysore, technical director-Asia Pacific, Critical Path, JS Kochar, chief-IT, GNFC Ltd., Peter Theobald, CEO, IT Secure Software Pvt. Ltd., H Krishnamaurthy, professor, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, Revathi Kasturi, founder and president, Tarang Software Technologies Pvt. Ltd.

The organisers hosted an industry nite reception on the first day of the event at The Oberoi. It facilitated the interaction between the exhibitors, media, industry players and the organisers. The 4th bank.net event is identified as a one-stop platform to abreast oneself to the ongoing and the future trends in the banking arena.