Hemindra Hazari
Risk management is the control and nerve centre of a bank. The independence of control and vigilance functions like risk management and audit has to be fiercely protected by the board of directors and the banking regulator. So when a major bank starts downgrading its chief risk officer...
Hemindra Hazari
There are high hopes that Urjit Patel, the new RBI governor will act to revive bank lending and thereby do his bit for the economy. But that would require him to make the right diagnosis in the first place. The recently released RBI Annual Report at least shows no sign...
Hemindra Hazari
The government’s decision to appoint Urjit Patel, the current deputy governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), to replace Raghuram Rajan as governor of the central bank was met with a chorus of approval by the media, and by captains of industry and financial capital who proclaimed...
Hemindra Hazari
The media has gone overboard on the government of India’s decision not to give Raghuram Rajan, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor, a second term, and focused on how the government is unable to retain an internationally acclaimed economist. However, now that Rajan is going, we need...
Hemindra Hazari
Axis Bank is one of the favoured stars among the new private sector banks in India, with an enviable reputation. The Banker gave it the Bank of the Year award in 2014; Brand Equity termed it the “Most Trusted Private Sector Bank” two years in a row (2013, 2014); Asiamoney called it the “Best...
Hemindra Hazari
ICICI Bank, India’s largest private sector bank by assets, posted shocking results for the quarter ended March 31, 2016. The consensus analyst forecast for the bank’s net profit was Rs. 3,100 crores; the bank reported a paltry Rs. 702 crores. This was an annual decline of 76% (compared to Rs....
Hemindra Hazari
The year is not even three weeks old but has already been unkind to financial markets. The stock market is back to pre-Modi levels; the rupee is back to pre-Raghuram Rajan levels.
While global markets absorbed the US Federal hike in late December 2015, the stock market meltdown in...
Hemindra Hazari
Equity research analysts produce impressive reports, operate complex statistical models, and can talk confidently about the future on the business channels. But the past year has not been kind to the fundamental predictions of most analysts.
In particular, there is a strong inbuilt bias of analysts to remain bullish....
Hemindra Hazari
Everyone knows public sector banks are less profitable, more prone to political influence and have higher ratios of non-performing assets (NPAs) than their private sector counterparts. In contrast, new private sector banks, set up post 1991, are media and stock market darlings. Most analysts tend not to mention...
It is curious that the first step of a reform-minded Chicago-school scholar was to announce a subsidy. Of course, unlike the subsidies that Rajan criticised as chairman of the Committee on Financial Sector Reforms in September 2008, this subsidy would go not to low income sections of the population, but to the banks.
