Department of Industrial and Management Engineering, IIT Kanpur successfully organised Pragyan, the guest lecture series of annual business conclave Prabandhan,16. Mr Anshul Garg, an alumnus of IIT Kanpur (MBA batch of 2005-07), currently the Director and V.P. at Centrum Capital Ltd, delivered a seminar on Banking and Finance as a part of ‘Pragyan’ during 'Prabandhan - 2016' . The following are the excerpts from this interactive session.
The discussion spanned across the banking scenario in India, technology in banking and future scope in finance. As told by him, the motivation behind a career in banking is the fact that presently out of $5600 billion wealth in India; only $250 billion is actually in investment which he told implied a huge scope for wealth management and investment. However, building up mathematical and quantitative skills remains vital to work in this area. He further threw some light on the tasks of wealth managers. One of the key tasks included assessing the product mix of companies and striking an ideal balance. He also explained some of the risks involved in working in the niche banking roles by providing the example of 2007-08 financial crisis.
He further threw some light on the tasks of wealth managers. One of the key tasks included assessing the product mix of companies and striking an ideal balance. He also explained some of the risks involved in working in the niche banking roles by providing the example of 2007-08 financial meltdown. This also brought about the discussion of ethics and fraud currently prevailing in the industry.
Moving on to technology he talked about the new trend: ‘Fin tech’, which he predicted to be still in an emerging stage and purported that its impacts would be observed sometime in the future. Currently what can be seen is the emergence of account-less banking system brought about by ‘Paytm‘ and the likes of it. He stated that he perceives them as a threat to the conventional banking system. Further in the area of creditworthiness, technology is helping out in quick assessment by taking the aid of S.M.S. information. Over the years technology acquisition has become cheaper. Banks are now utilizing this to reach out to a wider audience. He also predicted that biometrics and other identity verification systems would rope in rural masses as they make processes simpler.
Mr. Garg went on to answer further questions on revenue models of payment banks, competition regulation by government in banking and the importance of analytics in finance. He closed the seminar by providing insights on how cash flow is becoming the tool for credit rating and the fact that we are currently the beta testers for the technology which will eventually be aiding the rural population and the masses in the long run.