What you missed

If you had been at The Asian Banker’s 2007 Excellence in Retail Financial Services South Asia conference, you would have heard the following presentations:

Customer centricity
Shri V. Leeladhar, deputy governor, the Reserve Bank of India, spoke on how the regulator has helped banks become customer centric and why providing services to the unbanked is necessary.

Building a new bank
Former star banker and CEO of Bank of Scotland Sir Peter Burt talked about the challenges he faced merging BoS with Halifax in the early 2000s. People were the key to driving the merged HBOS bank forward.

Exceptional customer service
What can the back-end office do for front-end customer service?
V. Vaidyanathan, executive director, ICICI Bank, said systems were essential
to delivering extraordinary results in retail banking.

Microfinance for the masses
Yusuf Nawawi, general manager for training, Bank Rakyat Indonesia, described how the bank built a sustainable microfinance business that saved BRI from collapse in 1997.

Banking reform
India’s banking reforms in 2009 could radically alter the climate for state-owned banks allowing private players to become the new giants, said Professor Jayanth R. Varma, director, Axis Bank, and dean at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.

South Asia payments
Nigel Lee, president of First Data International, Asia, a leader in electronic commerce and payment services, highlighted how India was developing its payments systems and why there was a real need for payment acceptance.

Analytics
Ram Guduru, director, South Asia, Cognos, said you can only measure what can be controlled. Performance management should be used to control sales and marketing.

Credit cards
Customer retention comes from product innovation said Samir Bhatia, managing director, Barclays India. He used the bank's own Oyster Card as an example of how a credit, debit and touch point card keeps customers happy.

E-channels
Kazuhiko Saiki, managing director of customer services at Japan's eBank, said the internet-only bank’s IT capability and self-service concept coupled with an emphasis on maintaining security were primary growth drivers.

Pioneering service
Clive Haswell, CEO, Standard Chartered Sri Lanka, said banks can learn a lot from outsourcing in terms of finding best partners in technology, sales and market research.

First move advantage
Christian Kapfer, head of The Asian Banker’s Excellence in Retail Financial Services Programme, said it’s more important for Indian banks to grow their businesses from a strong foundation. They need to ask themselves where they want to be in 10 years and apply the appropriate long-term strategy.