XLRI – Xavier School of Management, hosted the Annual Finance Symposium – “GNOSIS 2016 ” in Mumbai.

14th November, 2016: The Finance Association of XLRI recently hosted GNOSIS 2016 – XLRI’s Annual Finance Symposium in Mumbai. The symposium is hosted every year by XLRI to promote a platform for interaction between academia and industry leaders to discuss relevant issues and challenges faced by the industry as well as finding solutions to them.

P S Jayakumar, MD & CEO, Bank of Baroda delivered the Key Note Address at the summit on “Changing Landscape of Banking and Financial Services”.

This was followed by a panel discussion on asset quality challenges and capital adequacy issues faced by Indian Banks by 4 eminent panelists including Mr Ananth Venkat who heads the Corporate and Institutional Clients business for South Asia at Standard Chartered; Mr. K P Nair, Deputy Managing Director, IDBI Bank; Mr. Ajay Mahajan, who heads the Corporate Banking function at IDFC Bank Ltd; and Retd Deputy MD of State Bank of India, Mr. M G Vaidyan who looked after the Stressed Assets Portfolio of India’s largest bank. Ms. Ira Dugal, Deputy Editor at Bloomberg Quint moderated the discussion, which saw these top bankers discuss at length various issues they keep facing in addressing these challenges faced by the system.

Mr Rahul Shukla, Managing Director and Head for Citi Bank’s Corporate Banking Function in India addressed the audience which composed of corporate delegates from more than 10 different banks as well as students from other b-schools in Mumbai participate in huge numbers. Mr. Shukla spoke on the emergence of FinTech and how banks need to adapt and integrate it into their functioning. “This is the best finance conference I’ve ever been to” said Shukla.

Mr Samit Ghosh, Founder & CEO, Ujjivan Financial Services being a Special Guest Speaker on MFIs and Small Finance Banks. He talked about how Ujjivan and other NBFC MFIs are catering to the needs of the underserved and unserved population of the country who do not have access to traditional banking channels.

The second panel discussion was on FinTech. The Panelists were founder and senior management from financial technology startups which include Mr Vipin Surelia, HEAD –RISK & Compliance, PAYTM; Mr Navin Chandani, CBD, Bankbazaar.com; Mr Mukund Mudras Co-Founder, Heckyl Technologies; Mr Srikanth Meenakshi, Founder & COO, FUNDSINDIA.com; Mr Vinay Mathews, Founder & COO, Faircent, talked about what is it that FinTech startups are doing differently from existing services providers and how do they plan to scale up their existing businesses to achieve economies of scale and start generating healthy returns.

XLRI Alumni and industry veterans Mr Surojit Shome, CEO DBS India; Mr Sandeep Bakhshi, MD & CEO, ICICI Prudential Life Insurance; Mr Ananth Venkat, MD, Corp Clients, Standard Chartered; Ms Madhavi Lall, MD & Head-HR, Deutsche Bank India; Mr Deodutta Kurane, President Human Capital, Yes Bank; Mr Animesh Kumar, Head – HR & Brand, IDFC Bank Ltd; and Mr Ernest Louis, MD & CPO India Value Fund Advisors were the recipients of ‘GNOSIS Excellence Awards’ for their distinguished contributions and professional achievements in the sector.