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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