Some useful banking websites

In my course titled Management of Banking and Financial Institutions taught as an elective course (besides another course "Financial Services") to the second year MBA students for over ten years, I have been attempting to bring in,  within the limited time, in a compressed manner, from fundaments of banking to the latest issues/developments in India.  Generally, the first session would deal with brief outline and explains The Indian Financial System which includes Indian Banking System.  Students would generally get mixed up with these two but are made to convince that in the last six decades, after Independence, there have been large number of initiatives taken by the Government of India and regulators like RBI, SEBI, NABARD, SIDBI, IRDA and PFRDA to establish harmony between various types of Financial Institutions operating in India.

Indian Banking System itself is vast.  It comprises of Finance Ministry at the apex level but RBI being the direct regulator.  It comprises of old and new banks.  Precisely, now there are eight types of banks viz., 1.State Bank Group (SBI + 6 Subsidiaries), 2. 19 Public Sector Banks and IDBI Bank, 3.Old Private Sector Banks, 4.New Private Sector Banks, 5.Foreign Banks, 6.Regional Rural Banks, 7.Local Area Banks and 8. Cooperative Banks (in Urban and Rural Areas).  All these banks are engaged in commercial and developmental/rural banking activities (Priority Sector lending) including foreign exchange business.

Generally, I begin searching for any core data or new policy initiatives from the websites like http://www.rbi.org.in/.  The other sites could be of all the individual banks, http://www.iba.org.in/ (a self-regulatory organisation), http://www.nabard.org/; http://www.sidbi.com/; http://www.iibf.org.in/ (an educational / professional organisation); and so on.  Additional data or information can also be sought from websites like http://www.indiastat.com/; http://www.brijj.com/; http://www.scribd.com/; http://www.google.com/; http://www.soople.com/; and so on.  The deeper you delve into any of these sites, the more you get.  I also go to http://www.ficci.com/; http://www.icrier.com/; http://www.pwc.com/; and like sites for latest studies and survey reports. The present generation is more comfortable with net-surfing rather than book reading.  A few more sites I can add are http://www.authorstream.com/; http://www.slideshare.com/; http://www.peerpower.com/; etc.  Of course, there is nothing like reading an original book, but I could not just find one comprehensive book in banking that could lead the students to learn all aspects of banking.  For teaching a session on Technology in Banking, I had to search in http://www.idrbt.ac.in/ and http://www.anthiphishing.com/ and some related books on Core Banking Solutions, e-Banking, Retail Banking and others.