We need incentive structure and change of regulations: Ulrik Ross

Interview with managing director and global head of sustainable financing, HSBC

We need an incentive structure and change of regulations: Ulrick Ross

Business Standard

Ratna Vishwanathan

Interview with Chief executive officer, Microfinance Institutions Network

Small finance banks will primarily focus on financial literacy: Ratna Vishwanathan

Interview with Founder and CEO, Disha Microfin

Aim to replace challenges with opportunities: Sameer Nanavati

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has granted 'in-principle' approval for 10 companies to set up small finance banks. One among them was Equitas Holdings Pvt, which has interest micro finance (MFI-NBFC), vehicle vehicle and housing finance. Equitas Managing Director PN Vasudevan told T E Narasimhan that the company would merge all the three business now and small-bank licence will help it extend its portfolio to liability-based products also.What is your view on Small Finance Banks as a whole? The whole concept of small finance banks and combined with payment banks which they have announced earlier, it is going to promote inclusion in a substantial way. We all will go in a different way to the market. We will be targeting the segments, which is not currently fully serviced by the existing banks. Most of the associates will be strong on technology from day one, which means ease and convenience for the customers to access his accounts should be in high order.What will be Equitas' focus and

Q & A with Equitas MD PN Vasudevan

Our ready customer base is of 700,000: R Baskar Babu

R Baskar Babu

We will have to restructure our operations entirely: Samit Ghosh

Samit Ghosh

Interview with Founder & MD, Ujjivan Financial Services

Urban-focused now, will also focus on rural areas: V S Radhakrishnan

V S Radhakrishnan

Will cover Punjab and Chandigarh in 1st yr: Sarvjit Singh Samra

Sarvjit Singh Samra

Interview with Managing director, Capital Local Area Bank

Interview with Founder & MD, Equitas Micro Finance India

Will improve in agri: P N Vasudevan

We want to have 20% Ulips in new business mix: Kshitij Jain

Private life insurance company Exide Life Insurance, which underwent a name change last year, is now looking to re-align its business mix to improve the share of unit-link insurance (Ulip) plans. In an interview with M Saraswathy, Kshitij Jain, MD & CEO of Exide Life talks about its strategy and roping in a foreign partner in the future.

We want to have 20% Ulips in business mix: Kshitij Jain

Some banks have approached us for partnership: Rishi Gupta

Rishi Gupta

Interview with MD & CEO, DHFL Pramerica Life Insurance

Our foreign partner is keen to increase stake to 49%: Anoop Pabby

Payments banks will offer services at lower costs: Rishi Gupta

Fino PayTech is among the 11 companies that won approval for a payments bank

For us, health and retirement planning is a priority: Trevor Bull

Trevor Bull

Q&A with Trevor Bull, MD & CEO, Aviva India

Would like to have 30 mn customers in 5 years: C S Ghosh

With Bandhan Bank commencing operations today, it now faces the challenge to position itself as a universal bank. To begin with, Bandhan Bank will go slow in lending, but will be aggressive in deposit mobilization. In an interview with Namrata Acharya, C S Ghosh, managing director and chief executive officer, Bandhan Bank, says the bank will look forward to have nearly 30 million customers in the next five years, and hopes to bring down its base rate in around a year's time. How would you like to see Bandhan positioned in the next five years? It is a difficult question to answer now. But definitely, in the next five years, we would like to have nearly 30 million customers. Your lending rates are quite high, when do you expect to bring down the lending rates.This will take at least a year. The lending rate will depend on the cost of funds. As and when we have enough deposits to bring down the cost of funds, we will reduce the base rate. We will pass on every reduction of cost of funds t

Q & A, C S Ghosh, managing director and chief executive officer, Bandhan Bank.

Vellayan Subbaiah

Interview with MD, Cholamandalam Investment and Finance

The niche we will own the most is financial inclusion: Vellayan Subbaiah

Krishnamurthy Subramanian

Interview with Panel member, P J Nayak Committee

Consolidation should not be forced by BBB, govt: Krishnamurthy Subramanian

Q&A: Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Founder & Chief Executive, PaytmFrom very humble beginnings in a small Uttar Pradesh town, VIJAY SHEKHAR SHARMA has come a long way. Starting as a mobile value added services firm, his One97 Communications has forayed into digital payments, got Chinese e-commerce major Alibaba as an investor, expanded into mobile commerce and, on Wednesday, bagged a payment bank licence from the Reserve Bank (RBI). Soon after the announcement, he spoke to Surabhi Agarwal. Edited excerpts:What does this mean for the company?We always believed there was a larger customer lifecycle that we serve, starting from pay to buy to the sale. Now, the government has given us the opportunity to extend the business model to financial services. It's a great opportunity and I believe we will do justice to it.How do we visualise Paytm one year from now?Think three/four line items of business and revenues -- payments, commerce and financial services. So, a customer can deposit, you can potenti

This will catapult us into a very different league: Vijay Shekhar Sharma

Shubhalakshmi Panse

Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan had constituted a committee, headed by former Axis Bank chairman P J Nayak, to review governance issues in public sector banks.Shubhalakshmi Panse, member of the Nayak committee & former CMD of Allahabad Bank, explains to Manojit Saha why the formation of an bank investment company is crucial for public sector bank reforms. Edited excerpts:How crucial is the setting up of a bank investment company (BIC) in the backdrop of banking reforms? Given that BIC will need lawmakers' approval to bring government stake below 50 per cent, do you think BIC can ever be a reality?The establishment of BIC entails amendments in a number of legislations. Hence, the government will take some time to implement it. A number of announcements have been made by the government in the direction of establishing BIC. However, the government is yet to commit it will bring its stake in public sector banks below 50 per cent. That is going to be a path-breaking step a

One has to be extremely careful before taking a drastic step: Shubhalakshmi Panse

Amitabh Chaudhry

Private life insurer HDFC Life is gearing up for an initial public offering (IPO). Its managing director and CEO AMITABH CHAUDHRY talks to M Saraswathy and Priya Nair about the company's future strategies. Excerpts: HDFC Life will be the first insurer to list on the exchanges. Has the process begun?As our chairman (Deepak Parekh) announced in the annual general meeting, the foreign direct investment (FDI) transaction (the proposed stake increase by foreign partner Standard Life) will have to be approved by FIPB (Foreign Investment Promotion Board) and Irdai (Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India). He also mentioned there would be no progress on the IPO front for 12 months. However, IPO is something our shareholders have wanted for a long time and, hopefully, we will get there soon.Your profits in the first quarter have been lower. Why is this?Overall, we've done well. We hope it will grow at a faster pace. Profits are down because of our growth. However, we have repor

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