Introduction To The Banking Industry
Introduction To The Banking Industry
Introduction To The Banking Industry
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI), As the central bank of the country,
closely monitors development in the whole financial sector.
The banking sector is dominated by scheduled commercial banks (SCBs).
As at end March 2002, there were 296 commercial banks operating in India
. This included 27 public sector banks (PSB), 31 Private, 42 Foreign and
196 Regional Rural Banks . Also, there were 67 scheduled state co-operative
bank consisting of 51 schedules urban co-operative banks and 16
scheduled state co-operative banks.
Scheduled commercial banks touched, on the deposit front, a growth of
14% as against 18% registered in the previous year. And on advances,
the growth was 14.5% against 17.3% of earlier year.
State Bank of india is still the largest bank in india with the market
share of 20% ICICI and its two subsidiaries merged with ICICI bank,
leading creating the second largest bank in india with a balance sheet
size of Rs.1040bn.
Higher provisioning norms, tighter asset classification noems, dispensing
with the concept of past due for recognition of NPAs, lowering of
ceiling on exposure to a single borrower and group exposure etc., are
among the measures in order to improve the banking sector.
A minimum stipulated capital adequacy ratio (CAR) was introduced to
strengthen the ability of bank to absorb losses and ratio has subsequently
been raised from 8% to 9%.
It is proposed to hike the CAR to 12% by 2004 based on the basle
committee recommendations.
Retail banking is the new mantra in the banking sector. The home loans
alone account for nearly two-third of the tital retail portfolio of the bank.
According to one estimate, the retail segment is expected to grow at 3040% in the coming year.
Net banking, phone banking, mobile banking, ATMs and bill payments
are the new buzz words that bank are using to lure customers.
With a view to provide an institutional mechanism for sharing of
information on borrowers/potential borrowers by bank and financial
institution, the credit information bureau (India) Ltd. (CIBIL) was set up
in August 2000. The Bureau provides a framework for collecting,
processing and sharing credit information on borrower of credit
institutions. SBI and AXIS are the promoters of the CIBIL.
The RBI is now planning to transfer of its stakes in the SBI, NHB and
National bank fir Agriculture and Rural development to the private
players. Also, the government has sought to lower its holding in PSBs to
a minimum of 33% of total capital by allowing them to raise capital
from the market.
Bank are free to acquire shares, convertible debentures of corporate and
units of equity-oriented mutual fund, subject to a ceiling of 5% of the
total outstanding advances (including commercial paper ) as on March 31
of the previous year.
The finance ministry spelt out structure of the government-sponsored
ARC called the Asset Reconstruction Company (India) Limited
(ARCIL),this pilot projects if the ministry would pave way for smoother
functioning of the credit market in the country. The government will hold
49% state and private players will hold the rest 51%- the majority being
held by ICICI bank (24.5%).