Several Founders, Co-Founders, CXO Bankers, CXO Fintech professional & people who participated in the ePanel discussions:
- Mr. Kaushal Thakkar, Founder & MD, INFIDIGIT
- Mr. Kamonasish Aayush Mazumdar, Founder & CEO at Foodieverse
- Mr. Vikram Sareen, Co-Founder & Digital Transformation Architect, The Advisory Network
- Mr. Shirsha Ghosh, Co-Founder Torit Innovations
- Mr. Neeraj Chandra, Head of Operations and Technology, Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank
- Mr. Sony A, Jt. General Manager, South Indian Bank
- Mr. Sachin Gupta, Regional Escrow Sales, IndusInd bank
- Mr. Zulkernain Kanjariwala (Ali), Head of IT Applications at IDFC FIRST bank
- Mr. Alok Karkera, Head – India Public Sector & North India Financial Institutions Group, Corporate Banking
- Ms. Kaunain Esmile, Vice President- Country lead Customer experience, DBS Bank
- Mr. Rakesh Bhanusali, Head of NRI- Sales, RBL Bank
- Mr. Ishan Vaish, India Partnership Manager- Worldwide Developer Relations, Apple
- Mr. Arun Tanksali, Co-founder & CTO, Nearex
- Mr. Mohammad Hassan, Project management expert
- Mr. Abhishek Mody, Associate Director-Payment & Digital Initiatives, IDFC Bank
- Mr. Vikas R Panditrao, Co-Founder, Forum of Industry and Academic Knowledge Sharing (FIAKS)
- Many other CEO/CXO Bankers & Fintech professionals on FIAKS Forum requested to remain anonymous
While the role of the bank is risk-taking as well, one of the FIAKS community members raises up these questions;
Question 1– What banks have done to help collaborate with Start-ups during the pandemic so far?
Question 2 -Is it that all start-up programs of private and MNC banks were only with an objective to open their current /business account?
Now if you evaluate the role of the banks you will end up fundamentally questioning what banking does in India?
- You see when bankers are recruited they generally don’t look into what is it that banking should do. If you look at a market like the US, it will be clear about what the difference is.
- Banking is meant as a B2C function as holding for safety and for transacting but the real money-spinner for banking is B2B money lending, especially B2B SME lending (Startups can be considered a sub-category SMEs or MSME) and then providing them options to grow their money – this function in India was never learned, never taught, never preached, never practiced, never done at scale – And when done, done mostly via who-knows-who plutocratic nepotism plus where banks only looking forward to large corporates and business people.
- This is. unfortunately, Government/RBI/Regulatory authorities fault more than banks themselves because let’s not forget India till very recent times in banking terms was 100% nationalized banks, the long lunch breaks and holidays might have gone away in private banking but the psychology and ethos of the same haven’t.
Now let’s pay some attention to these crucial notable questions:
- Have banks globally created platforms that have given startups a run for their money? Not really!
- Have banks innovation (not acquisitions) thrown startups out of business? Not much!
- Have banks collaborated with startups across the world? Again minuscule examples
- Well, if you see it is startups who are disrupting banking-globally. It is startups that are petrifying banks to collaborate and add value to the ecosystem.
- The only thing that goes against startups today is the support from the regulatory and banking ecosystem that clips their wings.
- The point is that in most countries, the banks’ legacy, trust, and power with local regulators have created a string lobby and stifles startups to grow further. And wherever things have changed is because the government has worked extensively to have startups work with regulations. Examples like Africa, Singapore, and some European countries are clear winners here.
A member who is a founder of a startup shares his insight, “Banks haven’t been particularly good at running accelerators but that has no bearing on what they should be doing today. I think banks have absolutely no responsibility in helping startups at this time, more than any other entity around. I don’t think startups need handouts at this time any more than at other times. Some startups will fail, accelerated no doubt by the pandemic, and some will prove to be useful enough to scrape through – but that’s the expected behavior in any case. Can banks find new answers in this situation? Yes, but that’s to further their own interests and not out of misguided obligations towards startups. So not doing anything out-of-the-ordinary to help startups which are not doing anything particular to make banks’ life easier is unnecessary. Can they work with startups better – most certainly, but that’s a steady-state issue and nothing to do with this pandemic.”
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