Anant Narayan Kulkarni, MD & CEO, The Kalyan Janata Sahakari Bank, spoke on the topic of Governance at the FCBA 2024 conference at Lucknow. Edited excerpts:
Self-inspiration and self-discipline are 2 big points for governance. We have to do what is in the document. This is the simple meaning of governance. What we have been doing, we have to write that in the policy.
If we look at the directors, they are all above the age of 50-55. We have adopted technology since the 90s. Before the 90s, did the banks not work properly? Good governance was always there. But technology beats everything. Why? See how much fraud risk management can we do with it, how much corporate governance can we do. In our bank, we do our board meetings paperless. We have given a tab to every director. Everything is created on it. Notes are sent, agenda is sent, everything is sent and it cannot be shared with anyone. If he has some queries, he can put it there and pass it on to the executor. This technology is used well in governance.
There was no CIBIL earlier. If someone took a loan from another place, we did not know. Now CIBIL has come, corporate governance has come in ROC. It brings out all their information. Because of such new technologies, we can do our fraud risk management well. So, isn’t there a problem in this? There is definitely a problem. There is a problem in every generation. What is the problem in this generation? Adoption of technology. The executive cadre, and the core group of directors, their mindset should be that we have to work depending on technology.
Now, professional directors are coming and they all need data-driven decisions. We used to do it with thumb rules. What is the behavioral pattern of our deposit withdrawal? We knew it. But today, because it is data-driven, we can confidently say that 90% of our deposits, at any rate, are renewed. It is backed by data. That is why data technology is necessary. Now, AI and a lot of things are coming to increase business, to reduce risk, to do corporate governance, to do compliance, to do risk. Our problem is receiving them. So, we should first change the mindset of board and management.
If you have technology, you have cost – capex and opex – which may not be affordable to the banks. NUCFDC and NAFCUB should take initiative on how to make it affordable.
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All stakeholders should know what is right and what is wrong
