Saturday, September 5, 2009
Banking Frontiers organized a roundtable at Hotel Grand Hyatt in Mumbai on 9 July 2009 on the topic 'Customer Engagement Strategies for Retail Banking', with Avaya Global Connect as the Knowledge Partner. Edited excerpts from the deliberations at the roundtable:
Manoj: India's middle class is huge. Obviously it presents a great opportunity for the financial sector. Has the retail industry has its heydays in the last 8-10 years? How was it? How do you see it going ahead?
Marathe: As far as PSUs are concerned, we have been into retail as far back as I can remember. But this branding around retail started with the new generation banks around the mid 90's, who came out with an idea of capturing the retail business in the urban metro areas and more so on the assets side. India was a capital starved country and finance was low and there was a rationing of credit. But when reforms came in, there was some relaxation in capital availability and consumer loans became the fashion. So banks started capturing customer where loans are given for consumption purposes and not just production products are concerned, our speed was slow. We have been overtaken by private sector banks because of technology and other issues.
KK Sharma: Largely it is reach and depth of coverage. So far, what has been achieved is largely restrained to metro and urban centres. In the semi-urban centres and rural areas, lot of work remains to be done. If we look at NREGS, the funds will directly reach the poorer sections of society, and the scope for banks will soon be tremendous. Banks should gear up for this challenge, and maximize opportunity. It is good for banks to be at the lower tier of the pyramid to reach out to everyone.
Atul: The middle class will continue to grow. I think this class of Indians and Chinese will lead the world out of recession. Retail has been a late opportunity, because once the capital started floWing into the country and the middle class started
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