Bank for and by Women in India

Bharatiya Mahila Bank (BMB) will come into existence from Nov 01, 2013. Earnestly wish that it will be a unique bank for empowering women unlike the one in cooperative sector founded four decades ago and vanished: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pratibha_Mahila_Sahakari_Bank. 
 
No doubt as on date, we have over a dozen top women bankers in India: http://www.deccanchronicle.com/...; and there are other successful outfits run by women like SEWA Bank (1972), and Mann Deshi Bank (1997), et al! They have performed wonderfully in rural areas. Will BMB be urban-oriented in public sector backed by Govt? How will it change the life of women customers?  Whether UPA is launching this new bank only with 2014 elections in view? What has been the take away from Microfinance, Self Help Groups and Financial Inclusion efforts all these years? Lets wait and see now!

Why Andhra Pradesh division is not justifiable..?

A very interesting and exhaustive interview with complete data...Mr DA Somayajulu of YSRCP

E-governance in India: Challenges and future

Overview: 2nd FT-YES Bank International Banking Summit 2012

Indian Banks and ATMs after 25 years

ATMs in India as on 31 March, 2013

25 years after introducing ATMs in the country, today we have 1,14,014 ATMs all over the country in rural / semi-urban /. urban / metro centres rendering 24x7 service to the country.  I had listed out the variety of ATMs in vogue in an earlier post in my blog.  Interestingly, these ATMs are attached to about 84,000 branches of 86 banks of all types (public / private - new and old / foreign) with a staff strength over ten lacs.

Private Equity funding in India

PE Financing to Agriculture in India

I have been closely following the developments in the topic of PE funding in India and also wrote a few articles, papers for conferences in the past six-seven years.  The more and more I am getting involved in this topic, at my own leisure, the topic has been appearing in the press quite often.  Every one is aware about the existence of Venture Capital funding and regulations, outfits and beneficiaries in India but no perceptible effort appear to have been made to document similar literature on Private Equity in India.  As the economic condition and capital markets activities are happening or changing to meet the pressing demands of the corporates - either listed or unlisted, in small, medium or large sector, or in SME or Agriculture, funds are being infused through PEs.  Only recently, GOI took some formal initiative of appointing a high level committee with experts to recommend Alternate Investment Funds including PE.  And recently, SEBI has began owning up this route of funding to the corporates and monitoring the activity.  Let us wait and see.

26 applicants with RBI for setting up new banks

26 new applicants for setting up banks in India