KV Kamath, Chairman, National Bank for Financing Infrastructure and Development (NaBFID), said that the overall economy and the banking industry are resilient and recovering. “Since March 2020, we have had a digital mindset at all levels, facilitated by technological innovation. Today’s technology is defined by five Ds: Demographics, Democratic, Dematerialize, Digital, and Disruptive,” he said.
Addressing the virtual ‘FIBAC 2021’ on the theme ‘Resilience and Rebound — Preparing for the journey towards a $5 trillion Economy’, organized by FICCI, jointly with IBA, Kamath said: “The customer has acquired the quality of agility and nimbleness. Banks have to keep pace with this. Banks can put in far more efficient systems at a fraction of the cost. There are no serious challenges to migrating, and we need to migrate at double the pace. The pace at which the digital supercycle is happening in India will grow at a much faster pace than one can imagine. The digital supercycle is going to be 20-25% of our economy over the next three years, and this is in addition to the growth of India at around 8-9%. Including this, we can see a growth of over 12% in India. This is the financial sector we need to create to cater to this kind of growth.”
He stressed that we need to create an ecosystem where the banking sector can grow between 15-20% in the next few years. “Growth is going to be robust, and challenges are going to be enormous. The target set to us by the government in the last budget was 4 trillion in the next 3-4 years. We can deliver on what the government expects us to do and we should be up in business by April 2022,” he added.
Sanjiv Mehta, President, FICCI said that “What the country needs is a virtuous cycle of growth and for that, we need to fire up on all the cylinders of the growth engine — consumption, investment, and exports. Both availability and access to capital are critical.”
AK Goel, Chairman, IBA said that with several policy measures and recovery efforts, today’s banks have much cleaner balance sheets, are adequately capitalized, and are in a position to provide resources to all productive and needy sectors.
Sunil Mehta, Chief Executive, IBA said that it is time for the digitization of the lending space, including the MSME sector, which will provide the ease of doing business as well.
