Financial Services Roundtable 2013

With much anticipation and enthusiasm, the Financial Service Roundtable 2013, yet another masterpiece from the series of Conclaves, took place at School of Petroleum Management, PanditDeendayal Petroleum University on October 18, 2013.

It was a privilege and honour to have Shri Rajesh Prasad (Head, RuPay Acceptance, National Payments Corporation of India) along with Shri D. J. Pandian (IAS, Principal Secretary, Energy & Petrochemicals Department, Government of Gujarat) and Dr. P. K. Banik (Directorate General, PDPU).

Inaugurating the session, Dr. H. C. Trivedi, (Director, School of Petroleum Management) and Dr.Akash Patel (Faculty, School Petroleum Management), warmly welcomed the dignitaries and Industry listeners to hear the Guest speakers deliberate upon Financial sector in India and its challenges. Dr.Akash Patel also provided a firm platform by presenting some of the facts of the Indian Financial sector and its challenges in brief.

Regarding the country’s present financial scenario, Shri Rajesh Prasad started off discussion by mentioning the underlying opportunity in Indian Financial Sector and the growth drivers for the same. Multiple chain of access, lower IT cost, underserved SME’s were some of the topics that were discussed under that umbrella.

Then the discussion was focussed on the prevailing payment system in India. Till 6-7 years back, as Mr. Prasad mentioned, RBI was working as both regulating and operating body for financial institutions. So there was a need for a separate body to oversee the operating activity and for that RBI initiated NPCI (National Payments Corporation of India).

Mr. Prasad also mentioned about how it is important to have a proper integration between financial services and payment infrastructure to ensure proper financial services. He mentioned how a huge amount of money and information of Indian citizens are being transferred to foreign companies viz. Maestro, VISA and AMEX when people in India uses credit or debit cards of these companies.

China prevents above stated problem by issuing cards of China Union Pay. India also has introduced RuPay for the same purpose and it is expanding gradually in the Indian market. There are some issues to make it prevalent in the market such as the lower acceptability of these cards on internet and various at various places.

He concluded the discussion by mentioning the advantages of the UID project in determining the financial behaviour of Indian traders and to provide better financial services.

The session was attended by various financial sector leaders and industry listeners. To name a few, the guest speakers for the roundtable were

Shri Anjan Ghosh (Sr Group Vice President & Head-Corporate Sector Ratings, ICRA India)

Shri AsimParashar (Associate Director, Management consulting, KPMG)

Shri Mehul Pandya (Executive Vice President & Head-SME, CARE Ratings), Shri ArakhitaKhandual (Former General Manager, IDBI Bank)

Shri Deepak Gaddhyan (Head-Financial institutions and Government Business, Ratnakar Bank)

Shri Ramchandran K (Vice President and Head-Regional office, SBI Capital Markets Limited)

Shri Jitendra Shah (Managing Director, Tipsons Financial Services)

Shri Mihir Joshi (Managing Director, Gujarat Venture Finance Limited)

Mr.Ranajit Banerjee (Director, PDPU Consulting).

The valedictory address was delivered by Shri. D.J. Pandian (IAS, Principal Secretary, Energy & Petrochemicals Department, Government of Gujarat). He depicted the importance of finance in today’s global market scenario. Even if one is not directly related to making decisions regarding financial issues, one must have some prior understanding of the same, according to Mr.Pandian.

Mr.Pandian told how ways of financing have evolved over a period of time from 1960s to today. How we have evolved from chit funds to post offices to mutual funds to insurance to the stock market. And he also mentioned how technology has changed the way of various financial activities. He also mentioned how SEBI evolved and what are the roles of it. Mr.Pandian mentioned what can be worth noticing issues in future financing, such as foreign exchange management, commodity exchange, treasury management, dry & wet lease etc.

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3rd Infrastructure Conclave

With immense fervor and enthusiasm, the 3rd Energy Infrastructure Conclave was organised at School of Petroleum Management, Pandit Deendayal Petroleum University on 4th October, 2013. It was a delight and honour to have Mr. Arun Kumar Jagatramka, Chairman and Managing Director, Gujarat NRE Coke Ltd. A Chartered Accountant with an all India 1st rank and a gold medallist. Mr. Jagatramka , a visionary of rare distinction was present to grace the occasion, giving valuable insights about  “Emerging Indian Trends and the dire Need for a Paradigm Shift .” Mr Jagatramka began with a brief introduction about the issues and the current energy scenario prevailing in India over the last decade. He emphasized on the fact that what all steps could be taken in order to meet the ever rising demands of energy and to achieve that one need to have a strong Energy Security policy in place, ensuring availability, accessibility and affordability of resources. Despite being the 3rd largest producer of coal , India is among the largest importers of the same which depicts the terrible  situation the country is facing. Exemplifying figures showcase that just within a year from Jan 2012 to Jan 2013 the imports have almost doubled from 7.4MT to 13.9 MT. He further envisaged the students about the widespread geo-political circumstances and oil diplomacy issues which act as major challenges. Another hurdle he talked about was that even after coal block allocation major players still have to pass through the strict regulations of environment clearance and make their way back ; the need of the hour is to resolve the coal mess troubling the corporate and individuals alike. With a motive to run a profitable business and contributing extensively in social responsibilities corporate today require eased government policies and viable regulations which mitigate the resistance put forward by the oil and gas sector.

While  Pankaj Sindwani started the lecture on the note of history about Tata Capital. He revealed the stake of Tata Son in Tata Capital. He even emphasized on Tata Capital being the largest equity firm in India. 

The session chair of the third session Mr. Kamal Dorabawila, principal investment officer, IFC, World Bank group, Sri Lanka delivered the lecture on “multilateral role in developing infrastructure-the IFC example”. Sir began the discussion by talking about financing in infrastructure and how various multinational companies support infrastructure in developing countries.  The World Bank group has 4 major entities with various purposes. IBRD and IDA mainly focus on providing finance to the government of different countries, while IFC and MIGA are related to financing and providing financial products to investors of developing countries.

Mr. Divyesh Desai, regional marketing manager, Shell-Total’s  Hazira LNG Ltd. spoke on “Energy logistics: regal terminals”. He started by asking everyone what does infrastructure mean? He also mentioned “think differently and act differently”. Mr. Desai added that infrastructure as a project is not simple and development of economy is dependent mainly on the development of infrastructure and also mentioned about the public private partnership.

Mr.Mohammad Athar, Manager (Capital Projects & Infrastructure, PriceWaterhouse Coopers) brought upon a different angle of infrastructure from consultancy side. The various HR initiatives taken at PWC were elaborated by the speaker. 

Mr. Manish Seth (Assistant General Manager(Finance)) set in motion the session with his in-depth knowledge on the complete value chain of the E&P sector. The speaker also explained the present natural gas share which is 11% slated to rise to 20% by 2025, its impact on the demand and supply. Functions of two major CGD companies i.e. GSPL and GAIL were elaborated. GSPL is in transmission activities only whereas GAIL is in bundled activity business.