MUMBAI, January 22: The Indian Banks' Association (IBA) will interact with industry chambers like the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Associated Chambers of Commerce & Industry (Assocham) and Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (Ficci) in a bid to refocus its role."We have remained insulated from the industry. Now we want to interact with the industry chambers on a one-to-one basis to know what they want. We have appointed Arthur Anderson to revamp the IBA as times have changed. A sea-change in IBA's image has become necessary," IBA chairman A T Paneerselvam said.
Talking at the first international retail-financial services conference for India and South Asia in Mumbai on Thursday, Paneerselvam said the association had so far kept away from interacting with the industry. The conference was arranged by the Lafferty's group.
The IBA chairman, who is also the Union Bank of India (UBI) chief, said the bankers' body would tie up with similar associations in the US, UK and Japan.
"Although they are far ahead of us, we can share a lot of things and learn from their experinces," Paneerselvam added.
IBA's role and importance suffered after interest rates were deregulated by the RBI . "People those days said that we had formed a cartel. That was a regulated regime. Things have changed and we have to change ourselves. We have to look beyond the role of a wage negotiator in the banking industry," the IBA chairman said.
According to Paneerselvam, a shakeout will occur in the banking industry over the next five years and 50 per cent of about 900,000 employees may end up losing their jobs. "There will be a lot to learn from foreign banks and there might be alliances between the foreign and the public-sector banks in the future," he said.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
