Like doctors, banks also should work beyond business hours: Rana Kapoor

He was speaking at a session on 'Financing Next Generation Corporations at the World' Economic Forum.

Banks need to transform their risk architecture and respond to the needs of their customers in a diagnostic and prescriptive manner by making their services available beyond usual banking hours, YES Bank Managing Director Rana Kapoor said today.

“Bankers have to become like public doctors. There is a need to redefine banking. I call it knowledge banking. A branch has to be a choupal, a town hall,” Kapoor said at a session on Financing Next Generation Corporations at the World Economic Forum.

He said bank branches were under exploited in India and banking facilities should be made available to the people before and after banking hours.
 
“We must create vehicles of communication to build trust. Models in banking and finance have to navigate with changing circumstances. Bankers, financiers need to understand life cycle banking. That phenomenon is not understood in Indian banking. Landing across the board phenomenon is historical,” he explained.
 
Speakers at the session emphasized first generation entrepreneurs should be prepared for higher level of documentation and scrutiny.
 
“Smaller companies must subject themselves to evaluation by credit rating agencies if they have want to be more acceptable and desirable to bankers. While these business ventures may consider themselves to be healthy, even young and healthy individuals must get a doctor's certificate to ensure that they are healthy. This exercise of independent scrutiny would do them a great deal of good and the preparation for it imbibe a sense of discipline in these business alongside making them worthier of attracting bankers,” said Pratip Chaudhuri, Chairman, State Bank of India.
 
On private equity (PE) firms Kapoor said promoters in India want PE investor to be there co-partners who stay with them but don’t tell them what to do.