Six of the country's leading bankers -- Pratip Chaudhuri, Chairman, State Bank of India, Chanda Kochhar, MD & CEO, ICICI Bank, Aditya Puri, MD, HDFC Bank, Pramit Jhaveri, CEO, Citibank India, Gunit Chadha, Co-CEO, Asia-Pacific, Deutsche Bank and Debarata Sarkar, CMD, Union Bank of India -- discuss the future of the sector at the Business Standard Banking Round Table 2012.
HIGHLIGHTS:
Manufacturing capex will improve in 2013, says Gunit Chadha
PSUs, like Coal India, are sitting on tons of cash, which is just not right: Chaudhuri
Freeing of interest rates has led to other free services: Chaudhuri
Banking is not a social industry: Pramit Jhaveri
Customer complaints have reduced a lot lately, says UBI's Debabrata Sarkar
Cost of deposits have increased and yields have come down: Sarkar, Union Bank of India
Our NIM and cost to revenue is one of the lowest in the world: HDFC's Puri
The level of Indian banking is at a much higher risk: Aditya Puri
The level of Indian banking in the world is at the most reasonable rate: Puri
In terms of range, banks' customer service standards have improved a lot: Chaudhuri
We should have proper communication with the agencies to tell them the right picture: Kochhar
FDI investments move on a long-term basis rather than on basis of credit downgrade: Kochhar
A possible credit downgrade would not be an earth-shattering issue: Kochhar
Markets don't believe the rating agencies: Aditya Puri, HDFC Bank
A rating downgrade will not be end of the world, says Chaudhuri
A downgrade will be loss of prestige rather than loss of capital: Pratip Chaudhuri
There is significant capital that is waiting to pursue growth: SBI's Chaudhuri
Downgrade will affect capital but FDI capital will not be affected: Jhaveri
Let's not underestimate the impact of a rating downgrade on India: Chadha
The probability of a rating downgrade is low: Chadha
We expect net accruals of Rs 50,000 crore, says SBI's Chaudhuri
New banking licences means there will be a change in market share for private banks: Puri, HDFC Bank
In the longer run, more competition has been beneficial for the customers: Kochhar
There is a lot of business for everybody, says Kochhar
Very close monitoring will be needed for corporate banking licences, says Chaudhuri
The successful private banks are promoted by financial houses instead of unrelated sources: SBI
In US, UK, Germany banks are not owned by industrial houses: Pratip Chaudhuri, SBI
Public banks need to reposition themselves in the wake of new banking licences: Chaudhuri
All foreign banks together have 400 branches in India, says Jhaveri
The size of the banking system with respect to the GDP suggests it needs to be larger: Jhaveri
The size of foreign banks in India is only 6%: Chadha, Co-CEO, Asia-Pacific Deutsche Bank
The Banking and Insurance Bills will be very positive for the banking system: Chadha
Whenever the demand is there, nearly every bank will reach there: Sarkar
Large portion of growth is coming from mobile banking: Puri
HDFC is taking banking to the unbanked: Puri, HDFC Bank
J&K, Uttarakhand, western parts of Orissa have been SBI's profitable sources of income: Chaudhuri
There are 100,000 bank branches for 600,000 Indian villages: Chaudhuri
Basel 3 need to have an impact on SME funding as most are unrated: Chadha
If global banks are withdrawing from asset funding, it's a huge opportunity for Indian banks: Chadha
There is a huge competitive advantage for Indian banks: Chadha, Deutsche Bank
In 2014 none of the European countries will be in recession: Chadha
There have to be deepening and widening sources of income like insurance, pension, ECB: Kochhar
There has to be other sources of funding in the economy other than banks: Kochhar
Banks play a much larger in India than in any other economy: Kochhar
Lot of exposure is going unhedged, says Kochhar
Today there is more liquidity in dollars: Kochhar, ICICI Bank
RBI has fought a long and bruising battle against inflation: Jhaveri, Citibank India
Slowdown in credit offtake is what we should be focusing on: Jhaveri
Come first quarter of the new year RBI should go in for interest rate cut: Chadha
Lukewarm demand as rupee loan is substituted by dollar loans: Chaudhuri
SBI is sitting on Rs 50-55k crore of extra deposits: Chaudhuri
We don't want to be like European financial institutions: Puri
Why are deposits not growing? Because money supple is not growing: Puri
Rural banking need to be looked into as lot of transactions are still taking place there: Sarkar
High cost deposits going down: Sarkar
Customers looking at gold and real estate, which is affecting deposits: Sarkar
Casa is coming down and blended cost is not coming down: Kochhar
Sharpest cut in wholesale deposit rates, which have fallen by 1.5%: Kochhar
A CRR cut would have improved the sentiment: Chaudhuri
This is the best opportunity for the banking sector globally: Aditya Puri, MD, HDFC Bank
Banks need to position more on the retail side, says Pratip Chaudhuri, chairman, SBI
Banking industry in the last three decades has grown ten times every ten years: Kochhar
Economy needs to move at much higher levels, says Kochhar, MD&CEO, ICICI Bank
There've been broad policy reforms but ground-level decision making need to move too: Chanda Kochhar
Global FDI more bullish on India than Indian entrepreneurs: Chadha
Very optomistic on global economy and mildly optimistic on India: Gunit Chadha, Deutsche Bank
Rising NPAs continue to be a challenge and worst is not yet over: Sarkar
Investors expect further softening: Sarkar
Sentiment has improved over the last 30 years of banking: Debabrata Sarkar, CMD, Union Bank of India
Investment cycle needs to start moving, says Citibank India CEO Pramit Jhaveri
Government's moves after the new finance minister took over were extremely decisive: Pramit Jhaveri
