Alan Yarrow, the new Lord Mayor of the City of London, and a delegation of senior executives from 13 institutions in the city – including Standard Chartered, Barclays, Accentrure, the London Stock Exchange and Lloyds of London – are set to begin a visit to New Delhi and Mumbai over the weekend.

Yarrow, who took up his post as Lord Mayor, representing the financial district of London, in November, is set to meet the Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and other ministers including law, and human resources, and the Chairman of SEBI, and the Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank of India during the five-day visit, where he will push the case for further reforms that city institutions are hopeful of following the election of the new central government.

Insurance reforms

Among the top issues for his meeting with the finance minister will be the opening up of the insurance sector.

“We want the market to be licensed rather than licenses given individually.” Opening up the market would give India far better access to political risk insurance and other specialised forms of insurance, he said.

The Lord Mayor – whose position is separate to that of the publicly elected-mayor of London Boris Johnson – said a number of issues would be raised during the trip, particularly relating to the time frame for resolving disputes.

Long time

“Its fair to say there are a number of issues that take too long to resolve…we know we are pushing on an open door… we want to show you can maintain sovereignty and do world trade with an efficient legal system that can arbitrate over legal contracts in a short period of time.”

He said, “One of the most frustrating things is the time it takes to get a court case through. It simply takes too long for a court case to get resolved.” He would also be highlighting the changes that overseas investors keen on making investments in the country would further like to see.

“The Government knows about the problems – and we know they want to make changes…we want to make sure that when they do make those changes they are in the right direction for what India wants to achieve.”

Financial sector

On the agenda of the SEBI meeting would be the structure of incentives for the financial services industry – an area that has been the focus of London regulators following the financial crisis and a number of scandals involving the rigging of benchmark rates.

“We want to share our experiences with SEBI as to what we have been doing on the behavioural aspects and what happens when incentives are not properly drawn up,” said Yarrow, who is also the Chairman of the Chartered Institute for Securities and Investment, a professional body focused on standards and ethics in the financial services industry.

Immigrations

Yarrow, the former Chairman of the Kleinwort Benson Group, acknowledged that for a while British immigration rules had stood in the way of attracting the best talent from outside the EU – including from India – into the city, though added that changes brought in a year and a half ago had improved the situation.

“We, as a country, could not survive if we do not have a very intelligent approach to immigration…we have to get access to the best brains…it was certainly difficult 18 months ago but under the new points system you don’t hear that it is much of a problem. There are still areas where there needs to be some improvement,” he said, adding that continued reforms would ensure that the country got the balance right in the long-term.

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