The Finance Association of XLRI (FINAX) recently hosted GNOSIS 2017, XLRI’s Annual Finance Symposium, on the November 11 at The St. Regis, Mumbai. The symposium saw Mr. Sunil Kakar, MD & CEO at IDFC Limited, deliver the Key Note Address at this year’s summit on “Financial Services in India: The Road Ahead”.
This was followed by a banking panel discussion on ‘The Twin Balance Sheet Problem’ by five eminent panelists including Mr. Ananth Narayan G., who was the MD and Regional Head of Financial Markets at Standard Chartered Bank; Mr. Jayesh Mehta, MD and Country Treasurer at Bank of America N. A.; Mr. Pradeep Khanna, who is the MD and Head of Trading at HSBC India; Mr. Madan Sabnavis, Chief Economist at CARE Ratings; and Mr. Sameer Narang, the Chief Economist at Bank of Baroda. The discussion was moderated by the famous journalist and author, Tamal Bandyopadhyay. Panelists discussed the health of banking sector, appraised the recent recapitalisation of banks, and suggested reforms to strengthen the banking industry and debt markets in India.
The post-lunch session had an exciting line-up, with the Co-Founder and Head of Trading at Zerodha, Mr. Nikhil Kamath, addressing the audience on discount broking model and enlightened the delegates with his personal Zerodha story.
A second panel discussion was held on the widening scope of investment banking in India. The panel was moderated by Ms. Shrija Agrawal, National Deals Editor at Mint. “The session was extremely interactive and energetic. It was really good to have such good answers from the audience”, said Ms. Agrawal. The panelists included Mr. Atul Mehra, who is the MD and Co-CEO of JM Financial; Mr. Raj Kataria, co-founder and director at Arpwood Capital; Mr. Narayanan Sadanandan, the EVP and Group Head of Investment Banking at SBI Cap; Mr. Rajesh Vig, Partner, Advisory-Deals at PWC; and Ms. Ankur Khurana, Director of Investment Banking at Credit Suisse.
The panel discussion was followed by sessions from two guest speakers. Firstly, Ms. Kunda Jadhav, Director at Barclays Shared Services, discussed the digital talent requirements and challenges in the investment banking industry. Next, Mr. Shashi Arora, MD and CEO of Airtel Payments Bank, spoke about how payment banks are game changers for financial inclusion, rather than being just unviable business models.
‘GNOSIS Excellence Awards’ ceremony saw distinguished XLRI Alumni such as Mr. Sunil Kakar and Mr. Shashi Arora, in addition to Mr. Vikram Tandon, Head-HR India, HSBC Bank; Mr. Pankaj Sharma, CIO- Fixed Income, DSP Blackrock; and Mr. Sandeep Das, MD of Private Banking in Standard Chartered Bank; receive the award for their achievements in the sector.
Established in 1991, The Finance Association at XLRI [FINAX] is essential to the finance domain at XLRI. GNOSIS, which is in its 8th year, continues to get bigger and better, with a terrific speaker line up of top bankers and entrepreneurs and 150+ corporate and student delegates all over India attending the event this year.
