Celebrating Indian Banking

These may be tough times for bankers but the mood at FE The Financial Express Best Banks Awards,on February 20 in Mumbai,was upbeat. Shrugging aside their worries,the whos who of Indian banking celebrated the industrys success stories,raised a toast to the achievers and saluted the winners. The camaraderie was visible as bankers compared notes and shared experiences. The top honchos of the banking industry were in full attendance,which included HDFC Banks managing director Aditya Puri,HSBC Indias group general manager amp; CEO Stuart Milne,Deutsche Banks MD amp; CEO Ranveet Gill,HDFC Bank ED,Paresh Sukthankar,Corporation Bank CMD Ajai Kumar,Bank of Baroda chairman and MD SS Mundra,Standard Chartered Bank CFO Anurag Adlakha and SBI national banking MD Krishna Kumar. Top executives from India Inc included McKinsey amp; Cos chairman Adil Zainulbhai,Vodafone Indias MD and CEO Marten Pieters,Blackstone Indias senior MD amp; and chairman Akhil Gupta,Tata Motors vice chairman Ravi Kant,JM Financial chairman N imesh Kampani,ICICI Ventures MD amp; CEO Vishakha Mulye,and Lamp;Ts whole-time director amp; CFO R Shankar Raman.

It was an evening of introspection but the underlying mood was tinged with optimism. While the winners drew applause,it was YV Reddy,recipient of the FE Lifetime Achievement Award,who had the crowd in splits with his quips. I take this award as a recognition for the importance of public policy in general, Reddy said in his acceptance speech,I have been told that this award is for the lifetime achievement as a banker but Ive spent the major part of my career as a non-banker. Some even thought I was an anti-banker during my stint as the RBI governor.Alluding to a remark from Shekhar Gupta,editor-in-chief of The Express Group,that none of the Indian banks featured among the top 20 banks of the world,the former RBI governor said that big was not necessarily good. It depends on the context. If big happens to be such that it cannot fail then that can be problematic. Big is good provided there are sufficient safeguards, he said. Union Commerce Minister Anand Sharma said that the fundamentals of the Indian economy remained strong and India had to now focus on its strengths. Our high savings rate should be channelled into investments, he said. Sharma also asked banks to lend to small entrepreneurs,artisans and weavers at affordable rates. The chief minister of Maharashtra Prithviraj Chavan talked about projects worth about 1 billion that were in various stages of getting rolled out. There was also a panel discussion on whether banks can support a recovery of the Indian economy.