THE NEW BANKING IS MORE DEADLY THAN COVID 19: More Bank financial frauds, Money laundering, Regime Change, Riots, Racial Trade Wars.

Year 2020 has been a life changing year in more ways than one for all people and this planet. The happier joys of life and family have been chocked by the many dangerously dumb western politicians and their man-made “Pandemic” virus fear fuelled by their lying medical monsters and their government funded mainstream media news. The brainwashed public carry on believing the lies and following the stupid new laws thus destroying their next generation. The 2021 western banking virus is more deadly and must be stopped from infecting the Eastern World. As there is little trade export and sales many western banks/financial institutes and companies are brazenly breaking international laws. Many of them are using Indian people, banks and companies to assist them in money laundering, financial accounting frauds. The British bank HSBC has a history of this and still continues to break many laws in Hong Kong and across the World.

The British Bank HSBC’s shares fell to their lowest level in 25 years as the bank faced allegations of money laundering and concerns about its ability to expand in Asia amid the fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic. The London-based bank’s Hong Kong shares slid 5.33 per cent to 29.30 Hong Kong dollars at market close on Monday and plunged 6.23 per cent in London to £285.05 at 11.22am UK time. The stock has nearly halved since the start of the year. The British bank is among five global financial institutions named in a report by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists that defied money laundering crackdowns by moving “staggering sums of illicit cash” in transactions that were flagged as suspicious.

This happened even after US authorities fined the institution for “earlier failures to stem flows of dirty money”, the ICIJ report said. The leaked documents, which are known as the FinCen Files, include more than 2,100 suspicious activity reports filed by banks and other financial firms with the US Department of Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. The documents identified more than $2 trillion (Dh7.34tn) in transactions between 1999 and 2017 that were flagged by financial institutions’ internal compliance officers as possible money laundering or other criminal activity, the report said. The top two banks are Deutsche Bank, which disclosed $1.3tn of suspicious money in the files, and JPMorgan, which disclosed $514 billion, the analysis found. Other lenders include Standard Chartered and Bank of New York Mellon, the report found, with HSBC disclosing $4.48bn in transactions.

The ICIJ report is another blow for HSBC, which is also a possible candidate for China’s “unreliable entity list” that looks to penalise firms, organisations or individuals that damage national security, according to the Communist Party’s Global Times newspaper. Last month, HSBC reported a 65 per cent drop in pre-tax profits to $4.3bn for the first half of the year, a much steeper fall than analysts expected with the bank's chief executive blaming a series of triggers. While HSBC is based in London, more than half of its profits come from Hong Kong. Europe's biggest bank also set aside between $8bn to $13bn this year for bad loans as it expects more people and businesses to default on repayments amid the fallout from the Covid-19 outbreak.

HSBC Bank 2018 tax fraud probe in India

The HSBC had acknowledged the fact that the regulatory and law enforcement agencies of various countries contacted the bank for information on persons and entities named in the leaked 'Panama Papers' which included hundreds of Indians who had indulged in alleged tax violations through offshore tax havens with the help of Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca. HSBC had set aside over Rs 5,000 crore ($773 million) as a provision for various tax and money laundering-related matters.

Here are all the key points that were related to the Indian investigation against HSBC:

- The Indian tax authority-initiated prosecution against HSBC Swiss Private Bank and an HSBC company in Dubai for allegedly abetting tax evasion of four Indian families.

- According to the report, the Indian tax authority had claimed they had sufficient evidence to initiate probe.

- The HSBC annual report said Indian tax authorities in February 2015 had issued summons and request for information to an HSBC company in India.

- Also, two offices of the Indian tax authority sent notices to HSBC companies in August 2015 and November 2015 on the matter.

HSBC's disclosure on the Indian tax authority's investigation came after the then Finance Minister Arun Jaitley informed the Parliament earlier that month that the Government detected over Rs 16,200 crore in black money after investigations on global leaks about Indians stashing funds abroad. In the written reply to the Rajya Sabha, Jaitley had also said about Rs 8,200 crore (including protective assessment of income of Rs 1,497 crore) of undisclosed income was brought to tax in the last two years on account of deposits made in unreported offshore accounts in HSBC Bank but this is not just limited to India.  Various tax administrations, regulatory and law enforcement authorities around the world, including in the US, France, Belgium, Argentina, are conducting investigations and reviews of HSBC Swiss Private Bank and other HSBC companies in connection with allegations of tax evasion or tax fraud, money laundering and unlawful cross border banking solicitation. Some Indian banks/financial institutes are being assisted by NRIs/PIOs and the Indian overseas branches who have closer relations with the many corrupt western banks/financial institutes. Nirav Modi (PNB Scam), Vijay Mallaya (Kingfisher Airlines), Rana Kapoor (Yes Bank and DHFL Scam) would NEVER have had the opportunity to commit the financial crimes against Indian government if the western banks/financial institutes had not completed the wire transfers and formation of offshore companies.

Instrumental in many business and banking trades from India to the UK/Europe and offshore locations is The Hinduja Group of companies in the UK. In 2000 Corruption charges were filed in Delhi, India against the three brothers in connection with one of India’s biggest and longest running arms sales scandals, the 1986 Bofars affair. A $1.4 bn Indian government (Congress Party) contract to purchase artillery guns from the Swedish manufacturer Bofors. The Indian investigators based the charges on bank documents that a Swiss court released to India between February 1997 and December 2000. The Hindujas failed in an appeal to the Swiss courts to have the release of the documents blocked. The Hinduja brothers were acquitted of all charges in the Bofors affair in May 2005. Delhi’s High Court threw out all charges against Srichand, Gopichand and Prakash Hinduja due to a lack of evidence. It is very interesting that Indian government failed to appeal against the high court judgement in the supreme court despite clear evidence due to the lack of Global expertise and offshore banking structures knowledge. One key point being that Hinduja Bank Ltd was founded as a finance company in 1978 and became a Swiss regulated bank in 1994. The Hinduja Bank has its headquarters in Geneva and has a developed network in Switzerland including offices in Zurich, Lugano, St Margrethen, and Basel. Hinduja family have the backing of the IndusInd Bank which in May 2020 is planning to raise over $500 million to shore up its balance sheet as it grapples with bad loans. The bank registered a 16% year-on-year drop in net profit at INR30.1bn ($401m), which lead to a 56% rise in bad loan provisions to INR244bn ($3.24bn). Its stock prices also plunged to more than 70% since the beginning of 2020.

The bank, which is backed by Hinduja Group, is in talks with three strategic investors, including Japan’s Nippon Life for the fundraising. According to sources, Nippon Life needs a bancassurance partner to boost its distribution network of insurance products in India. It also intends to bag huge corporate treasury cash for its asset management business in the country. However, the preliminary talks with Nippon may or may not result in a successful transaction. The other potential strategic investors include Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB), and Singapore’s GIC. All the investors were warned in advance about the shady past of the Hinduja Group.

There is much more to this which will be re-investigated in the coming months as well as many new investigations and tracking of Indian banks/financial institutions and NRI/PIO companies who are on the scanner of The WHS Group’s “INDIA FIT” (Financial Intelligence Troops) legal case databases. In 2021 “INDIA FIT” is the new healthy cure and right medicine shots that bring back more business trade sales confidence and FDIs into good clean healthy Indian companies that we verify/certify a good clean bill of health to so that scams/frauds are eliminated and no international laws get broken.

What are FinCEN files?

FinCEN is the US Financial Crimes Enforcement Network at the US Treasury who combat financial crime. They look into grievances and concerns about transactions made in US dollars need to be sent to FinCEN, even if they took place outside the US. The FinCEN files comprise 2,657 documents, including 2,121 suspicious activity reports, most of which were files that banks sent to the US authorities between 2000 and 2017. They raise concerns about what their clients might be doing. These documents, known as Suspicious Activity Reports or SARs, are some of the international banking system's most closely guarded secrets. They reflect views by watchdogs within banks, known as compliance officers, reporting past transactions that bore hallmarks of financial crime, or that involved clients with high-risk profiles or past run-ins with the law. A bank must fill in one of these reports if it is worried one of its clients might be up to no good. The report is sent to the authorities.

India, IPL links

Indian entities figuring in these documents include “a jailed art and antique smuggler; a global diamond firm owned by Indian-born citizens named in several offshore leaks; a premier healthcare and hospitality group; a bankrupt steel firm; a luxury car dealer who allegedly duped several high net worth individuals; a multinational Indian conglomerate; a sponsor of the Indian Premier League (IPL) team; an alleged hawala dealer”. A key finding is that in many cases, the very fact that individuals and companies are being probed by Indian agencies is part of the SAR flagged to FinCEN.

In a majority of cases, domestic branches of Indian banks have been utilised to receive or remit the funds; in some cases, bank accounts with foreign branches of Indian banks, too, have been used to carry out these transactions. As many as 44 Indian banks figure in the FinCEN Files primarily because they are “correspondent banks” to the foreign banks which have filed these SARs. Key in this list are Punjab National Bank, Kotak Mahindra, HDFC Bank, Canara Bank, IndusInd Bank and Bank of Baroda, among others.

There are a total of 3,201 transactions which have been listed as "suspicious" in nature and these add to $1.53 billion—but this is only those where complete Indian addresses linked to different entities (senders, banks, beneficiaries) are available. These are attached as spreadsheets in each SAR. Over and above, are thousands of other transactions, also linked to Indian entities where senders or beneficiaries have addresses in foreign jurisdictions, the report added. What was more revealing is that the Indian Premier League (IPL) has also landed on the US financial regulator’s radar in a network of transactions involving a leading US bank, a little-known UK company, a Kolkata-based sponsor of an IPL team, and allegations of fraud and forgery. 

In 2013, KPH Dream Cricket, which runs Kings XI Punjab, went to court against team sponsor NVD Solar International Ltd for “cheating and duping” them of $3 million in sponsorship fee. The SAR, filed by , reportedly offers a clue to what went wrong. In 2013, San Francisco-based Wells Fargo Bank had received “a $2,975,460 SBLC (Standby Letter of Credit) from Deutsche Bank AG in London” with KPH Dream Cricket as the beneficiary. The SBLC for nearly $3 million was sought by Aerocom UK Ltd, an air tubes manufacturer, with no apparent links to the team or the sponsor. The SBLC said that “in case of failure of the obligator, NVD Solar International Ltd of Dhaka, Bangladesh, was to pay the amount due as per the terms of the contract”.

However, according to the SAR filed by Wells Fargo, the SBLC turned out to be “fraudulent” and was “declined”. Wells Fargo’s SBLC unit found that none of the companies named in the request—applicant Aerocom UK, beneficiary KPH Dream Cricket, warrantor NVD Solar — were on the bank’s customer rolls. It concluded that the “SBLC is believed to be bogus, as a search of Wells Fargo electronic messaging system does not show receipt of this transaction”, according to the SAR. An investigation by Wells Fargo’s Trade Finance Investigations unit also found out that the transaction also involved a forged signature. The IPL case is just one among the many transactions with India connections that were red-flagged in a SAR. 

According to the leaks, Indian banks received $482,181,226 from outside the country and transferred from India $406,278,962. These transactions were red flagged to the US authorities. So far, the Indian banks named by ICJI for dubious transactions include State Bank of India, Punjab National Bank, Union Bank of India, HDFC Bank, Indusind Bank, Axis Bank, ICICI Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Yes Bank, Indian Overseas Bank, Canara Bank, Bank of Maharashtra, Karur Vysya Bank, Tamilnad Mercantile Bank, Standard Chartered Bank (India operations), Bank of Baroda, Bank of India, Allahabad Bank, Indian Overseas Bank, Indian Bank, Deutsche Bank (India operations), UCO Bank, Karnataka Bank, RBS, Andhra Bank, and Vijaya Bank.

The present Indian government and people of India have been robbed by many of their own Indian people who were assisted by many on the Little British Island BK (Broken Kingdom) and their offshore bank locations. The World Homeland Security (WHS) Group of companies has undertaken financial investigations of misconduct, bribery and corruption, as well as assessments of financial transactions, accounting irregularities, and regulatory and compliance issues on behalf of publicly and closely held companies, private equity firms, government agencies, municipalities, NGOs and high net worth individuals. India and China must avoid conflict, making peace is the best path forward. Western warmongers need another war so that they can “Divide and Rule” while stealing more Eastern Countries resources, create regime change riots and shatter the Eastern Countries societies with terrorism/false flag attacks. India and China Govts must amicably make land border decisions with lawful agreements while increasing more peaceful trade business ties so that it prospers people from both countries.

Why India’s financial system is vulnerable to hacks?

India's financial systems are extremely vulnerable, because they still rely on international banking networks like Swift to make transactions. International gateways are open vectors of attack for India. Last year hackers were able to siphon off 900m rupees ($12m; £9.7m) from Cosmos bank in the western city of Pune through a malware attack on one of its data suppliers. India is among the top three countries in the world for phishing and malware attacks. Although this comes down to the sheer size of India's digital population, the population of France is added every month to the country's internet: it is a big concern because many first-time internet users are being pushed to use digital payments.

In November 2016, for instance, when the government suddenly removed 80% of the country's cash from the economy by saying that 1,000 and 500 rupee notes would no longer be valid, Prime Minister Narendra Modi heavily promoted digital payments as an alternative. Mobile payment platforms both (Paytm) and (GooglePay) have since become a massive industry in India. A report by Credit-Suisse estimated that mobile payments in India would become a $1tn market by 2023. Credit and debit card payments are also popular, with an estimated 900m card operational in India today. Many of the newest entrants to India's internet more than half the 600 million-odd total users are from the middle or bottom of the pyramid. This means that very often, their digital literacy is low, or they are migrant labourers working in states where they are not familiar with the language hence, they are very vulnerable to fraud. And secondly, there is inadequate reporting of fraud by banks, which means sometimes consumers are not even aware of what has happened.

What kind of fraud is happening?

Financial fraud in India takes many different forms. Some involve hackers fixing skimmers and keyboard cameras to ATMs, which duplicate the card details of unsuspecting users. Others involve calling people up and tricking them into handing over information. The problem is that in a digital transaction lines are blurred and confusing. In the real world there is a clear distinction between giving and receiving. But on a mobile payment platform, this is not always clear. For instance, someone trying to sell a table online might be called by someone posing as a prospective buyer, offering to make an online payment. If that person says that he or she has made a payment and tells you that you will get a code via text message to confirm the transaction, many users would think nothing of it, even if they are asked to tell that person the code. The next thing they know is that the money has been deducted from their account.

What improvements can be made?

One problem is that the systems themselves are not secure or transparent enough. In the Cosmos fraud for instance, the software was not able to throw up red flags when so many transactions were compromised. And by the time the fraud was discovered, a huge sum of money had been lost. Furthermore, a lack of standardisation also makes transactions confusing, especially for first-time users. ATMs for instance, come in many different forms and each payment app in the country has a different interface. In India, due to the lack of computer software education and correct security procedures there is a human problem. People lack even basic awareness of the dangers, leaving both themselves and sometimes entire systems at risk.

What is the government's role?

Given the rate of India's internet growth, it is not possible to rely on just education alone. It's not possible for everyone to keep up with the sophisticated methods of hackers, especially when they are constantly changing tactics and methods. So, the onus has to be on regulators and payment firms to protect users. The other problem is that communication between the various cyber-security organisations is just not fast enough. The Computer Emergency Response Team (Cert), are sometimes too slow to respond to reported threats. But India is already aware of this. The country is formulating a national cyber-security policy for 2020 -2021 and officials have identified six critical areas where policy needs to be where special attention is needed. Finance security is one of these areas. It is only then that India will be able to effectively respond to the risks that come with moving to a largely cashless economy.

Even before the pandemic: the western economies and majority of people were already crumbling into deeper debts, bankruptcies, lost jobs/homes and slow trade. The present British regime is breaking international laws on the withdrawal agreement which was written agreed and signed by Clown UK PM BoJo as their Brexit virus finally gets cured. Stop your investments, banking and credit loans to UK/British companies as you will suffer bigger losses in 2021 and beyond as their Brexit cure fails to work as do their public fail to work (No new Jobs) because they were stupid enough to vote and elect their clown prince BoJo and his highly useless mindless ministers who enjoy breaking laws even when the little Island is in lockdown mode.  

Many western politicians, companies, Banks/financial institutes in the West will increase more bank financial frauds, money laundering, regime change, Riots, Western False Flag terrorism acts in the East, More Plandemic Virus BS lies and more Racial Trade Wars. More peace can prevail if good people irrespective of one’s country, culture or religious beliefs learn to respect more real truths without being swayed and misled into more darkness which will dim and destroy your children’s future peaceful happy lives on this Earth if you do not peacefully unite now. It is not hard to make a decision when you know what your “True” Values are.

Writer is the Global Chairman Group President of The World Homeland Security/Smartechno Group of Companies.  www.worldhomelandsecurity.one

Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) entered 64th year of its incorporation on Sunday. It has played a significant role in spreading the message of life insurance among the masses and mobilisation of people’s money for their welfare.

In this journey, LIC has crossed many milestones and has set good performance records in various aspects of life insurance business. In its 63 years of existence, it has grown in terms of its customer base, agency network, branch office network, new business premium.

LIC has been embraced technology from the nascent stage. It is continuing its journey by reaping the benefits of technology to become customer-centric, to improve pricing and to create operational efficiencies. It has a strong online presence and has provided digital platform for new business and servicing operations to both internal and external customers.

The focus of the corporation is to enhance the e-presence and e-delivery capabilities and to transform existing enterprise IT systems in sync with the expectation of the users. It is also issuing e-policy along with physical policy document.

LIC has revamped its portal system with latest technological platforms to enhance digital experience and provide online services. Various options are available — product information, downloading plan brochures , premium calculator, apply for policy, LIC office locator, policy self servicing options like Policy Information, online premium payments, advance premium payments, revivals, online loan request, loan repayments, ULIP statement, grievance redressal etc.

It also offers life insurance protection under group policies to people below poverty line at subsidised rates under social security group schemes like Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana (PMJJBY) and  Aam Admi Bima Yojana (AABY). These schemes provide life insurance protection to the persons living below poverty line and marginally above poverty line.

LIC won 25 Awards in the year 2018-19 including golden peacock award for National Training and Readers Digest awards.

Writer & Courtesy: The Pioneer

With a few simple tweaks, rural banking can be made both viable and result-oriented. But for this, political will is needed

The Government is planning a mega revamp of the regional rural banks (RRBs) and that includes consolidation for better operational efficiencies. In the budget 2019-20, it allocated Rs 236 crore towards the capitalisation of RRBs. There are 56 operational RRBs and the roadmap is to bring them down to 38 or below. There were 196 RRBs after the concept was originally introduced in 1975, to ensure access of affordable credit to the rural population.

RRBs were set up to eliminate other unorganised financial institutions like money lenders and supplement the efforts of co-operative banks. Although RRBs have performed commendably, in recent years, they have lost sheen on account of their inability to preserve the low-cost model and raise capital. RRBs have not been able to attract bright talent. Poor leadership has retarded their mission and vision. Issues relating to governance, suitability of design of products and staff productivity continue to stifle their growth. At present, the Central Government holds half the stake in RRBs. Sponsor banks own 35 per cent and the rest 15 per cent is with the State Governments.

While the Government’s renewed rural focus is laudable, some important caveats must be in place. It is true that banks can play an important role in the financial transformation of low-income communities, but sustainability should never be overlooked. In their excitement to oblige their constituencies, politicians run financially amok and literally plunder banks for vote-banks. This was precisely the reason why India’s post-nationalisation mass banking programmes degenerated into populist agenda, which financially ruined the banks.

All these highlight how an unenlightened politician can play havoc with the financial systems. The entire execution lacked the soul of a genuine economic revolution because it was not conceived by grassroot agents but was assembled by starry-eyed mandarins, who had picked up bits and pieces about financial inclusion from pompous new-fangled and half-baked ideas generated at seminars and conferences. Cheap loans, followed with periodical waivers and write-offs, have been the hobby horse of eye-on-the-ball experts and lazy policy-makers.

The original banking concept, based on security-oriented lending, was broadened after the nationalisation of banks to a social banking concept based on purpose-oriented credit for development. This called for a shift from urban to rural-oriented lending. Social banking was conceptualised as “better the village, better the nation.” However, opening new branches in rural areas without proper expansion, planning and supervision of end use of credit, or creation of basic infrastructure facilities meant that branches remained mere flag-posts. It was a make-believe revolution that was to lead to a serious financial crisis in the years to come.

The Integrated Rural Development Programme (IRDP) is a grim reminder of how mechanically trying to meet targets can undermine the integrity of a social revolution to such an extent that a counter-revolution can be set into motion. Arguably, India’s worst-ever development scheme, the Integrated Rural Development Programme (IRDP), was intended to provide income-generating assets to the rural poor through the provision of cheap bank credit. Little support was provided for skill-formation, access to inputs, markets and necessary infrastructure.

In the case of cattle loans, for example, a majority of cattle owners reported that either they had sold off the animals bought with the loan or that those animals were dead. Cattle loans were financed without adequate attention to other details involved in cattle care: Fodder availability, veterinary infrastructure and marketing linkages for milk among others.

People erroneously came to believe that the State had all the answers to their problems. Governments, international financial institutions and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) threw vast amounts of money at credit-based solutions to rural poverty, particularly in the wake of the World Bank’s 1990 initiative to put poverty reduction at the head of its development priorities. Yet, those responsible for such transfers, had — and in many cases continue to have — only the haziest grasp of the unique demands and difficulties of rural banking.

Working for the poor does not mean indiscriminately thrusting money down their throats. Unfortunately, IRDP did precisely that. The programme did not attempt to ascertain whether the loan provided would lead to the creation of a viable long-term asset. Nor did it attempt to create the necessary forward and backward linkages to supply raw material or establish marketing linkages for the produce. Little information was collected on the intended beneficiary. The IRDP was principally an instrument for powerful local bosses to opportunistically distribute political largesse. The abiding legacy of the programme for India’s poor has been that millions have become bank defaulters through no fault of their own.

Today, the people so marked find it impossible to re-join the formal credit stream. The entire notion of economic revitalisation became a kind of code: It’s a formulation that isn’t taken literally and one that worked wonderfully well to bring all the anti-poverty players together at a time when the world’s energies were focussed on ending poverty. Juicy numbers are music to the ears of bosses. Numbers have been a great obsession with Indian planners in particular. Number of men and women sterilised, contraceptives circulated, wells dug, toilets constructed, villages screened for polio, TB or malaria, children enrolled in schools and saplings planted… there is no accountability for fudged figures. In fact, majority of the rewards are given to officers most adept at massaging figures. The game of numbers, without a concurrent focus on social performance and evaluation of quality of assets created, has been the bane of most credit programmes for poverty reduction and self-employment. 

There are two basic pre-requisites of poverty eradication programmes. First, reorientation of agricultural relations so that the ownership of land is shared by a larger section of the people. Second, programmes for alleviating poverty cannot succeed in an economy plagued by corruption, inflation and inefficient bureaucracy.

A poverty eradication programme must mop up the surplus with the elite classes. These two pre-requisites call for strong political will to implement the much-needed structural reforms. Besides, the Government must aim at a strategy for the development of the social sector — the key component should be population control, universal primary education, family welfare and job creation, especially in rural areas. These and other aspects of poverty alleviation have not received any importance so far in our planning policy making.

During the massive banking expansion phase in the 1980s, opening a bank branch was made to look as casual as punching a flag post. It was impossible to locate a proper structure to house the bank. The existence of a toilet or a medical centre, a police post or a primary school in a village, as a precondition for a bank branch, was simply overlooked. In several cases where the expiry of Reserve Bank of India (RBI) licence for the opening of the bank branch approached without proper premises being identified, banks were housed in a temple or a local community centre, marked by a small banner and a photograph screened as evidence of the launch of the bank’s operations.

Rural branch expansion during that period may have accounted for substantial poverty reduction, largely through an increase in non-agricultural activities, which experienced higher returns than agriculture, and especially through an increase in unregistered or informal manufacturing activities. But there was a significant downside; commercial banks incurred large losses on account of subsidised interest rates and high loan losses — indicating potential longer-term damage to the credit culture.

Rural finance programmes should have substantial inputs from rural sociology as part of the training kit for rural managers. Rural Banking requires greater insight into rural sociology than banking practices as far as finance is concerned. A basic knowledge is adequate to handle these simple credit proposals. It is only in case of high-tech agriculture that technical skills and expertise are required. With a few simple tweaks, social banking can be made both viable and result-oriented. We should not commit the mistake of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

(The writer is member, NITI Aayog’s National Committee on Financial Literacy and Inclusion for Women)

Writer: Moin Qazi

Courtesy: The Pioneer

India does not even have a data protection policy. This is something that our policy-makers need to look forward to instead of batting for the right to be forgotten

As a concept, the Right To Be Forgotten (RTBF) evolved in the 1990s in western Europe and subsequently developed as part of human rights jurisprudence. France became a pioneer of this issue when it recognised the “right to oblivion.” This right was available to all convicted individuals, who had served their prison sentences. Often, in cases like these, social stigma is attached to individuals even after they have served their punishments. In general, people had ready access to the criminal history of such cases and the actual commission of a crime would perpetuate stigma. As a result, individuals suffered regardless of the geographical location.

The RTBF is reflected in Article 17 of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) of the European Union (EU). The EU Parliament took nearly four years of preparation and debate to approve the GDPR in 2016, which was finally enforced on May 25, 2018. The GDPR framework replaced an outdated Data Protection directive from 1995. It contains provisions that require businesses to protect their personal data as well as privacy of the EU citizens for transactions that occur within the member states of the EU. It also regulates the exportation of personal data outside its boundaries.

In the Indian context, RTBF is envisaged in the Justice BN Srikrishna Committee report (2018) on Data Protection Bill. The report held that the “rights of the citizens have to be protected, the responsibilities of the States have to be defined but data protection can’t come at the cost of trade and industry.” Thus, there is also a strong possibility of this right making its way into the Indian legislature. The rationale of the Supreme Court of India in the Puttaswamy judgement has upheld other fundamental rights securing individual liberty in the Constitution. In addition, individual dignity is one of the basis for right to privacy. Privacy itself was held to have a negative impact (the right to be let alone) and a positive one (the right to self-development).

The sphere of privacy includes the right to protect one’s identity. This right recognises the fact that all information about a person is fundamentally their own and he/she is free to communicate or retain it for himself/herself. This core of informational privacy is, thus, a right to autonomy and self-determination with respect to one’s personal data. Such a notion has also been echoed in the Srikrishna Committee report (2018) on data protection.

Further, it believes that a free and fair digital economy, one that empowers the citizens, can only grow on the foundation of individual autonomy, working towards maximising the common good. However, the report manifests an approach to balance free speech with RTBF. Many have pointed out that the Bill doesn’t lay down the golden principle of allowing individuals to be true owners of their own data. The report further includes a balancing test with five criteria for the judiciary to weigh the freedom of speech and expression with RTBF.

RTBF is sometimes referred to as the Right to Erasure (RTE). As it is commonly misunderstood, RTBF is not synonymous to the RTE. It is rather an extension of it. The underlying principle of RTE is that when there is no compelling reason for the subject’s data to be processed, he/she can request the data controller to erase/remove their personal data, stop any further distribution of their personal data or potentially prevent third parties from processing their personal data.

RTE was applied to only proprietary databases. For example, if one wishes to unsubscribe from a

magazine, he/she can ask the concerned firm to delete all information that they possess of him/her. RTE did not apply to search databases as RTBF does. Hence, RTBF is actually an extension of the RTE.

The debate around this has gained a lot of traction in India after the Supreme Court recognised Right to Privacy in its landmark case of Justice KS Puttaswamy (Retd) and Anr vs Union Of India and Others. The apex court held that right to privacy is part of the right to life and personal liberty as guaranteed under Article 21 of the Indian Constitution. A nine-judge Bench held that “life and personal liberty are inalienable rights. These are rights which are inseparable from a dignified human existence. The dignity of the individual, equality between human beings and the quest for liberty are the foundational pillars of the Indian Constitution…” The verdict has given impetus to demands for recognition for other fourth generation human rights in India, like the right to be forgotten and RTE.

The right to privacy guarantees liberty in private spaces, electronic or otherwise. This means that the information, which is not in the public domain, is protected from coming into the public domain. Right to be forgotten, on the other hand, involves information that is already in the public domain and is required to be delinked from the individual, who has claimed the right to be forgotten.

Further, the RTE operates in an even niche area, where an individual can target a specific database and claim a RTE against it for the removal of information which concerns them. But the fourth-generation communication rights, like the right to be forgotten, come with their own set of flaws.

First, one of the major problems is that the guarantee of the right vests with only a few individual corporations. Take the example of Google. As per Google’s Transparency report, it can remove only 41 per cent of the URLs against which some issue was raised. This means that the authoritative framework for implementing such a right now vests with a corporation and it is performing an adjudicatory function while deciding to accede to a request of removal. This is something which the Indian legal system does not envisage; wherein adjudicatory role is an essential state function.

Second, there is a concern that accused criminals can wipe out valuable evidence while their guilt is under adjudication. This can turn out to be an implementation nightmare for security agencies, especially those who are collaborating on international crimes and possibly terrorism.

Third, the sheer reach of the internet make a case for something, like the right to be forgotten absolutely impractical. If there is an adjudicatory order, for instance against Google, the information, which a claimant is seeking to protect, is not necessarily saved by such a request. This simply because Google is not the sole repository of that information. Details may be available through other search engines and may still be hosted as it is a primary website. Hence, it is highly problematic to put such a right in motion. Regardless to mention, it also involves significant expenditure to bring it into force.

Fourth, India does not even have a data protection policy. This is something that our policy-makers need to look forward to instead of batting for the right to be forgotten. Because in the absence of such a system, multinational corporations, which practically administer and govern the internet, are beyond the jurisdiction of the Indian law and courts. Hence, even a guarantee will be meaningless if the decisions of our courts are not respected/recognised.

(Raghav Pandey is an Assistant Professor of Law and Anoushka Mehta is a student of Law at the Maharashtra National Law University, Mumbai)

Writer: Raghav pandey/Anoushka mehta

Courtesy: The Pioneer

The Supreme Court has directed the Reserve Bank of India to disclose the names of wilful loan defaulters in RTI requests

With the Supreme Court making it clear that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) must heed Right To Information (RTI) requests for its Annual Inspection Reports (AIR), which would reveal the names of those who have wilfully defaulted on loans, it seems we have taken a crucial step in ensuring financial transparency. While the RBI asserted that this would imperil banking secrecy laws, its argument was dismissed by Justices Nageswara Rao and MR Shah with some exceptions. They clarified that the statements of the bank, reports of the inspections and information related to the business obtained by it does not, in fact, fall under the pretext of confidence or trust. However, the question remains about whether naming and shaming will do any good.

One potential prospect is that many of those, who are afraid that their names will be revealed once the Supreme Court order is implemented, will make an offer to pay up to keep their good name. There is no doubt that there are a large number of people who owe money to the Indian banking system and have the ability to pay, but often, sometimes in connivance with bank officials, as happened with Nirav Modi and Punjab National Bank, they do not pay back, knowing full well that they will not get prosecuted. However, many ‘wilful’ defaulters are often individuals who have not quite bankrupted themselves but have failed in their business ventures. In that ambiguity, there are some aspects of privacy that are also violated, and some modifications might be necessary in the classification of wilful and ‘non-wilful’ defaulters. Then again, naming and shaming people who break the law is possibly one of the only ways to get them to repent. Unlike the Panama Papers, this data, once released, will have perfect provenance and that will mean that many of the excuses that people make when caught will be just that, excuses. There is the possibility of another major risk. Much like the hundred plus individuals, who have run away from India, some even acquiring foreign citizenship using their ill-gotten gains, will many more take pre-emptive flights out of the country? Will the fear of knowing that they might be exposed make several hundred rich fraudsters run away from Indian banks and the law? However, this is a risk that we must take, considering some countries like the United Kingdom, have opened their doors willingly to financial fraudsters. Yet other nations are very strict with such individuals and extradite them promptly. Clever fraudsters tend to hide in nations where they know their chances of prosecution are limited. They are the worst type of criminals, knowingly not paying their dues and, thus, making life harder for everyone else who pay back their loans for homes, cars and everything else properly. As the saying goes, the hands of the law are very long. But those hands should know who to catch. Lest there be any objections, remember that the banks’ total non-performing assets amounted to Rs 11.2 trillion in FY18.

Writer & Courtesy: The Pioneer

Financial access alone is not enough to change the economic landscape of the country. We have to stimulate productivity, raise living standards, unleash entrepreneurial energy and reduce inequality

India has grown into a global powerhouse and while its economy is soaring, the picture on the ground is still quite grim, with the green shoots we see being only a patch of the overall landscape. Most Indians are hapless victims of inequity.  India is one country where intense poverty abounds in the shadow of immense wealth.

The Indian economy is projected to be the fastest growing major economy in the world in 2018-19 and 2019-20, ahead of China, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Per capita national income rose from Rs 86,647 in 2014-15 to Rs 1,12,835 in 2017-18. Furthermore, improved telecommunications, seamlessly connected global markets, universalisation of information through Internet and innovations in the financial ecosystem have all opened up opportunities for the common man like never before. It is, therefore, imperative that lack of demand and supply of financial services — to all levels of society — do not act as an impediment to the country’s growth.

Inequality and exclusion are two of the most pressing challenges facing the world today. In recent years, policy-makers have realised that development will be uneven and not wholesome if we do not address the problem of exclusion in a big way. Inclusive growth is necessary to ensure that the benefits of a growing economy extend to all segments of society.

Access to and integration of every individual into the formal economy by providing opportunities to use his/her potential to improve upon their well-being is essential for the building of a prosperous and stable economy. Inclusive growth is widely recognised as having four mutually supporting pillars — an employment-led growth strategy, financial inclusion, investment in human development priorities and high-impact multi-dimensional interventions (win-win strategies).

It is now accepted wisdom that a key ingredient of inclusive growth is financial inclusion. Inclusive financial systems have potentially transformative power to accelerate development gains. They provide individuals and businesses with greater access to resources to meet their financial needs such as investment in education and housing, capitalising on business opportunities, saving for retirement and coping with various economic shocks.

Like all other rights, citizens have the right to participate in the economy. The Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP), the development arm of the World Bank, puts it well: “Ensuring the financial system is inclusive is paramount in the process of creating a more inclusive, equal and peaceful society.”

For the millions of individuals who are in the lower deciles of the economic pyramid, lack of access to financial services is extremely difficult, expensive and harrowing. It constrains their ability to plan for their family’s future and traps households in cycles of poverty. More broadly, it limits the economic growth potential of a country. People need to protect themselves against hardship and invest in their futures to cope with risks such as a job loss or crop failure — all of this can push families into destitution. Many poor people around the world lack access to financial services that can serve many of these functions such as bank accounts. Instead, they rely on cash, which is not only unsafe but hard to manage.

Financial inclusion, in its broader market conceptualisation, is the belief that people, including the very poor and marginal, should gain access and be able to regularly use these services — an idea that the World Bank promotes as part of building inclusive economies, financial institutions, fintech companies and mobile operators and others pursue for evidently more self-serving reasons. Having an account isn’t the angle — it’s using the account to achieve development goals, to save, to invest in business and educational opportunities and to build financial resilience.

The objective of financial inclusion is a task that independent India has tried out in different forms over the decades but has not been able to get it quite right. Initiatives include the cooperative movement, followed by priority sector lending, lead bank schemes, service area approach, creation of National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development and Small Industries Development Bank of India, introduction of Regional Rural Banks (RRBs), Local Area Banks (LABs) microfinance, kisan credit cards, business correspondence and finally, Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana.

All these initiatives have been supply-driven — delivery of banking services to the poor people, if need be, at their doorstep. However, they have not been able to achieve the goals with which they are designed and mandated. Most of them were based on a misconceived premise and assumption. One important lesson they have offered is that the availability of finance is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for poverty reduction. It is certainly not an end in itself.

In this race to financial inclusion, we will be missing the mark if we believe that financial inclusion will by itself eliminate poverty. Financial literacy, access to financial tools and economic empowerment underpin the development of healthy and stable states. But it needs to be complemented with a host of other services. Financial services alone cannot vault the poor out of poverty. They can enable economic enfranchisement but cannot solve social exclusion, which has to be addressed by tackling the entire combination of problems. The issues include: Unemployment, discrimination, poor skills, low incomes and poor housing. One of the main reasons that the excluded populations cite for not having a financial account is that they simply don’t have enough money to open and use an account.

We need to remind ourselves of the memorable poser of Dudley Seers, first president of the prestigious European Association of Development Institutes (EADI), on development: “The questions to ask about a country’s development are: What has been happening to poverty? What has been happening to unemployment? What has been happening to inequality?”  Credit is a powerful tool if it is used effectively when it is made available to the credit-worthy among the economically active poor participating in at least a partial cash economy — people with the ability to use loans and the willingness to repay them. But other tools are required for the poor, who have prior needs, such as food, shelter, medicine, skills training and employment.

For development to be wholesome, it must cover all basic facets of individual or society’s well-being: Health, education, housing and employment. The well-known economist VKR Varadaraja Rao underlined that integrated development is not done in isolation through the project approach or even the programme approach but is integrated to take account of their mutual interaction and their linkages forward or backward, temporal or spatial, friendly or hostile, with a view to achieving the total result, which is universalisation of health and enrichment of the quality of life.

Since substantial public investments are being made to promote financial inclusion, convergence, inclusive collaboration and mutual reinforcement alone can ensure better resource utilisation. Plans and strategies that operate in   exclusive silos lose out on the benefits of mutual synergy and convergence of the various development channels. Advocates of financial inclusion claim that financial services will reduce poverty and promote pro-poor development but critics believe that this is illusory and that it falsely prioritises finance over delivery of more important services. Financial services are presented as central to social and economic growth and development.

Inclusive finance requires us to break the vicious cycle where educational, financial and digital exclusion combine to create social exclusion and isolation. The obvious lesson is that financial access alone is not enough: There has to be money to put into the account. For this, we have to stimulate productivity, raise living standards, unleash entrepreneurial energy and reduce economic inequality.

Financial inclusion is actually a tool in a broader development toolbox but in certain conditions, it happens to be the most powerful tool. It will make the poor a little more resilient but it is not the answer on its own. It has all to do with how we are using it and how we are defining the outcomes. Access to credit is not enough to alleviate indigence. More than micro-loans, what the poor need are investments in health, education and the development of sustainable farm and non-farm related productive activities.

(The writer is Member, NITI Aayog’s National Committee on Financial Literacy and Inclusion for Women)

Writer: Moin Qazi

Courtesy: The Pioneer

LIC’s New Chairman: Hemant Bhargava

The managing director of the Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) of India, Hemant Bhargava, has taken additional charge as Chairman of the organisation in place of V K Sharma, who retired on December 31, 2018. Bhargava had taken charge as managing director of LIC of India in February, 2017.  A true leader, he was instrumental in completing the design and setting up a separate Micro Insurance vertical which was LIC’s first comprehensive enterprise-wide initiative in financial inclusion space. He also set up a new joint venture in collaboration with the banking industry, and founded LIC Cards Services Limited, launching the ‘LIC Card’ in 2009. He also set up the newly formed SBU International Operations to manage LIC’s operations in about 11 countries. He has also been instrumental in finalising the first memorandum of understanding (MOU) for LIC to form a composite insurance company in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Bhargava founded the ‘Indian Business Group’ in Mauritius for promoting the business interests of the companies of Indian origin with the High Commissioner of India being the Patron. Bhargava has also headed different Zones, viz. Northern Zone comprising of Delhi, Punjab, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Haryana and the Union Territory of Chandigarh and the Eastern Zone comprising of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Manipur, Nagaland, Sikkim, Tripura, West Bengal and the Union Territory of Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

Saurabh Kumar takes charge as DGOF and Chairman of OFB

Saurabh Kumar, IOFS, took over from P K Shrivastava, IOFS, Director General of Ordnance Factories (DGOF) and the Chairman of the Ordnance Factory Board (OFB) upon the latter’s superannuation at the OFB Kolkata. Kumar, an IOFS officer of the 1982 batch, is an MTech in mechanical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur. An expert in the manufacture of ordnance, Kumar was on deputation to the Ministry of Defence at Delhi as the Director of Planning and Coordination from 2002 to 2009. During this period, he was involved in drafting the Indian offset policy for defence purchases and the ‘Make’ procedure in the Defence Procurement Procedure of 2003-04, which incorporated the recommendations of the Arun Singh Committee.

He was also instrumental in piloting the proposals and obtaining the approval of the government for setting up two, new greenfield Ordnance Factories at Nalanda and Korwa in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh respectively.

As the general manager of the Engine Factory at Avadi (2012-13), he was involved in operationalising the project and initiating an indigenisation programme which culminated in the handing over of the fully indigenous engines of T-90 ‘Bhishma’ and T-72 ‘Ajeya’ tanks to the Minister of Defense in July 2018.

His tenure saw the establishment of the vendor base that led to this achievement and an increase in production of new engines by 30 per cent. As the general manager of the Ordnance Factory Ambajhari, near Nagpur in Maharashtra, Kumar spearheaded the modernisation programme which included the induction of the robotic forging technology, new generation CNC machines and the predictive maintenance, which not only increased productivity and quality but also led to the successful productionisation of the ‘Pinaka’ rockets.

Writer and Courtesy: The Pioneer

Greater financial inclusiveness is a gateway for balanced development and a cohesive society. With billions of people already using mobile phones, the means to introduce them to formal financial services already exists. The mobile telephony system has enabled contact with villages that remained far away from banks and unreachable by road. It has also transformed businesses and family life besides bringing more people into the financial mainstream.

In India, an expansive network of mom-and-pop stores, tailors, pharmacies and telco booths has been extending customers similar services  as that of banks. This includes paying the utility bills electronically, sending money back home, mobile phone top-ups, paying television and Wi-Fi bills and purchasing travel tickets — all of this is done without the hassle of opening a bank account.

In most villages, shopkeepers help customers transact these services using their mobile phones. This has made these services accessible to low-income families, who have to struggle with technology. Money can now be transferred quickly, efficiently and securely with a fraction of cost incurred with other channels. People in far-flung villages are now able to receive social benefits, buy ration and make payments using their Aadhaar card. This has helped save the recipients several hours of commute and wait time.

As a platform, the mobile has a unique set of capabilities that can overcome the challenges posed by the payments landscape. Mobile platform combines digital identity, value and authentication to create low-cost access to financial services. Take for instance, OTP-based authentication for Aadhaar-linked accounts and biometric authentication for processing transactions. Mobile finance offers at least three major advantages over traditional financial models. First, digital transactions are essentially free. In-person services and cash transactions account for a majority of routine banking expenses. But mobile finance clients keep their money in digital form. This is why they can send and receive money often, even with distant counter parties, without incurring transaction costs from their banks or mobile service providers.

Second, mobile communication generates copious amounts of data which banks and other providers can use to develop more profitable services. It even acts as a substitute for traditional credit scores (which can be hard for those without formal records or financial histories to obtain).

Third, mobile platforms link banks to their clients in real time. This means that banks can instantly re-lay account information or send reminders; and clients can quickly sign up for services on their own.

Mobile operators know how much consumers are spending on air time and are also able to infer other relevant information. If the customer is a regular user of a mobile money transfer service, the operators may also be able to assess his/her disposable income. They team up with banks, financial tech (fintech) companies and data analytics specialists to use this data to build financial profiles and offer credit to those who otherwise lack proof to re-pay loan. On-time payment of bills can attest the financial discipline of the consumer.

For the micro-finance industry, such systems represent an important opportunity as they enable borrowers to apply for, receive and re-pay loans on their mobile phones using a network of local agents. But this doesn’t mean mobile is a magic device that can provide algorithms for all credit- related issues. A majority of the population still doesn’t use smartphones and there are many who use it very frugally.  

The proportion of the Indian population that has access to financial institution accounts via mobile phones or the internet to transact digital payments still remains significantly lower as compared with other developing economies, particularly sub-Saharan Africa. In Kenya, 79.0 per cent of adults made digital payments in 2017, and in South Africa 60.1 per cent, compared to 28.7 per cent in India (World Bank 2018).

While digital technology is opening new channels for delivering financial services, other challenges also persist. Sparse population, inconsistent network coverage, lack of trust or insufficient capital for building new business models can stand in the way of success, particularly in connecting remote or undeserved communities. The aversion of the ‘other India’ to digital finance has more to do with their disinclination to everything that has more to do with technology. This stems from a lack of trust in and comfort to use technology. Women often face additional barriers: Limited access to mobile phones, low literacy level, less confidence in using technology and restrictions on travel or social interaction.

For India to attain mobile money, as has been the case in Kenya, providers will need a more liberal stance from the Central Bank (Reserve Bank of India) whose stiff legal and regulatory framework has constrained the expansion of mobile money. It is understandable that in a vast country like India with such a diverse and remotely dispersed population, most of which is poor and illiterate, the central banker has to tread the terrain cautiously.

Security of consumers must be the topmost priority and concern. Although we must continue to make the case for responsible digital finance being good business, we know that isn’t enough. Independent and well-resourced regulators, consumer groups, and other organisations are critical to ensure that the consumer protections afforded by the law and regulator are actually followed and enforced. The new customer base build-up by the Jan Dhan Yojana has its own peculiar fragilities and vulnerabilities. Regulators must live up to trust.

We must remember that the ‘technological’ layer is another tool — a means to an end — and not a solution in itself. In certain conditions, it happens to be the most powerful tool and certainly enables services to be delivered efficiently at a scale with great benefits. But it has to do with how we are using it and how we are defining the outcomes.

The unfulfilled promise of past technologies rarely piques the most optimist advocates of cutting edge, who believe that their favourite new tool is genuinely different from others that came before. We must not forget that we are working with a constituency which is both politically and socially mute. Building inclusive digital economies requires the collective action of Governments, industry, financiers and civil society. Before speeding ahead, we need to build infrastructure, align policies and create the tools that can enable the poor to comfortably board the digital train.

As Ghanaian diplomat Kofi Annan had said: “In managing, promoting and protecting the Internet’s presence in our lives, we need to be no less creative than those who invented it. Clearly, there is a need for governance but that does not necessarily mean that it has to be done in the traditional way, for something that is so very different.”

(The writer is Member, NITI Aayog’s National Committee on Financial Literacy and Inclusion for Women)

Writer:  Moin Qazi

Source: The pioneer

We can’t jeopardise the future of one business to save the other. Similar is the case with the banking system that runs on a few ethical principles. If a person commits fraud by submitting spurious documents, declaration or statement of his/her account, he/she should be treated as an economic offender. By committing fraud, one not only cheats the bank but also puts people’s hard-earned deposits at risk. Millions of poor, pensioners, widows and workers of the unorganised sector keep their hard-earned money in banks with expectations that they would earn interest and would get their money back whenever they need them. Banking business actually thrives on people’s low-cost current and savings account deposits. It is another matter that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) keeps reserves to protect the banks from crisis, which safeguards people’s deposits. Given that the Indian banking sector is fast integrating itself into an unstable global financial system, reserve funds always work like cushion.

Over the years, a large number of scamsters has taken undue advantage of banking loopholes to run away with huge credits. As per RBI data, as on September 30, 2017, there were 5,879 reported incidents of frauds amounting to Rs 32,048.65 crore in 2017-18. Gross non-performing assets (NPAs) in banks stood at more than Rs 7.34 lakh crore in September this year, according to ratings agency ICRA. The need, therefore, is to strengthen the law and put stringent guidelines for wilful defaulters who try to break the very backbone of the country’s financial system. In doing so, they also create trust deficit between banks and borrowers that adversely affects the credit cycle of the banks. Experts have suggested that the public sector banks (PSBs) be privatised. In reality, the workings of PSBs are entirely different from the private sector banks — it has a wide network to reach people in the remotest area. PSBs face tough challenges, like political interference at the village level, manpower shortage and pressure to meet social sector objectives. On the other hand, private sector banks have better operational efficiency, investment skill and less response time. Nevertheless, both have their strengths and weaknesses. Privatisation of the PSBs is not a sound option but an escape from the difficult task of reforming the banks itself.

Professional CEOs, equipped with updated management information system, effective board of directors, sound HR policy, state-of-the-art internal and concurrent audit system, dedicated asset supervision mechanism and a detailed information structure can prevent frauds and reduce NPAs. Equally, banks must pay more focus on fraud prevention measures than post-fraud correctives. A new mechanism must be adopted to judge the reporting, communication skill and decision-making capacity of the employees. There is also an urgent need to stop the practice of giving incentives to the CEOs so as to achieve desired targets. Many PSB chiefs are known to put pressure on the entire staff. This results in oversight, leading to frauds. All kinds of post-retirement assignment should be stopped for the good health of the banking sector.

Defaulters of the likes of Nirav Modi, Vijay Mallya and Mehul Choksi among others could not have duped the banks had their boards, audit teams, supervising officers, loan review committee, asset verification teams, information system auditors and CEOs worked in tandem. Few banks conduct dedicated physical verification of assets, which in many places invites risk. Here, the Government must provide adequate security to the bankers. Physical asset monitoring is a must for banks. Over the years, bad loan in the agriculture sector has witnessed an alarming increase from Rs 24,800 crore in 2012 to Rs 60,200 crore in 2017 due to loan waivers, poor credit end use, unviable methods of agricultural practices and lack of dedicated research and planning.  Politicians desperately cling to loan waivers for votes and cause immense damage to entrepreneurial life cycles. This creates massive idle energy across the country. Politicians should revive village ponds, wells, ground water, bio-diversity and above all natural agricultural practices. Subhash Palekar, agriculturist and research scholar, has revived natural agriculture practices free from all kinds of pesticides. His model works well in villages with rich bio-diversity, which helps increase the farmers’ income in order to help save banks from a defunct credit cycle in rural areas. There is no paucity of credit, technology, skill and innovation in the country. But there is lack of will to ensure that bank credit serves the ultimate purpose.

(The writer is a freelance commentator)

Writer: Sudhansu R Das

Source: The pioneer