With the exponential growth of branch network happening on the one hand and the resultant benefit – a pan-India presence – that century-old scheduled commercial banks are getting on the other, should they be excited or worried?

Getting a foot-hold across the country is no doubt a giant-leap considering that the founding-father of most of these banks took to this business to support their community.

But the challenge today is not merely about achieving growth target but competency loss due to retirement and rising attrition rate, say industry experts.

To discuss this and other HR issues, a panel discussion on ‘Capacity and Competence Building in Traditional Private Banks’ is being convened at the Taj Vivanta here on December 20, organised by the Banker’s Quotient Academy (BQA).

Panel discussion Panel members include the Chiefs of seven old private banks such as HS Upendra Kamath, MD and CEO of Tamilnad Mercantile Bank; Rakesh Sharma, CEO of Lakshmi Vilas Bank; K Venkataraman, CEO of Karur Vysya Bank; VG Mathew, CEO of South Indian Bank; N Kamakodi, CEO of City Union Bank; PG Jayakumar, CEO of Dhanalaxmi Bank; Rakesh Bhatia, CEO of Catholic Syrian Bank and Ranjan Dhawan, Executive Director of Bank of Baroda.

Speaking to BusinessLine , founder-Chairman of BQA and former Chairman and Managing Director of Union Bank of India, MV Nair, said an informal chat with the heads of nationalised banks revealed that Chiefs were worried about the emerging vacuum in leadership role in banks.

To address this and other bank-related issues, the Academy initiated the process of creating the next generation of bankers by offering on-boarding solutions for officers and clerical staff, and end-to-end programme management services for annual training requirements of banks. It has, since inception in June 2013, trained close to 4,000 personnel.

Referring to a Committee constituted by the Reserve Bank under the Chairmanship of G Gopalakrishna, former Executive Director of RBI and present Director, Centre for Advanced Financial Research and Learning (CAFRAL), the BQA Chairman said this committee was constituted with the objective of implementing non-legislative recommendations of the Financial Sector Legislative Reforms Commission relating to capacity building in banks and non-banks, streamlining training intervention and suggesting changes in view of increasing challenges in banking and non-banking sectors.

The ambit of the committee’s report is essentially human resource intervention for improving the efficacy and efficiency for personnel employed at various levels in banks and NBFCs.

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