Experts stress on financial empowerment at grassroots

At a time when around 38 per cent of people in the country are living below poverty line, substantial value addition by the financial sector needs to be done at the grass root level, for emancipating millions from the eternal debt trap.

This was stated by experts at the National Management Conference on 'Banking & Finance', organized by the city-based Asian School of Business Management (ASBM).

Addressing delegates and students at the conference, Amitabha Guha, chairman of South Indian Bank and former managing director, State Bank of Hyderabad said, “Micro Finance Institutions should revamp their roles in upgrading the income generation activities of the marginalized sections of the society. The time has come where money needs to talk and act also.”

 

Speaking on the occasion, Ashish Bhattacharyya, Professor of Indian Institute of Management (IIM-Calcutta) said, “In this era, knowledge capital is playing a comparatively bigger role than financial capital and hence money now talks a different language.”

He highlighted the significance of ethical accounting practices in running contemporary business.

Delivering the welcome address, Biswajeet Pattanayak, founder and group director of ASBM stressed on the basic tenets of the new economic order prompted by the changing facets of finance and stated that the national conference would help to add tremendous values in the process of growth pertaining to the banking, insurance and financial services sector.