When a Dinosaur finally decides to get moving, it covers the ground at a very high speed. This is similar to what is happening to the course of banking industry in India. For decades, the banks in India have focused on earning big money from corporate clients. However, things have radically changed. Banks are awash with excess liquidity; interest rates and inflation are moving southwards. Corporates do not borrow from banks in a big way due to a variety of reasons like economic slowdown, infrastructural constraints etc. Under this scenario banks are forced to look into the retail segment for lending and therefore the spotlight has now shifted to the retail sector. Banks across the country are tripping over themselves to enter new segments- car loans, consumer loans, housing finance, educational loans, credit cards etc. The big bonus for banks came in the form of the Securitization Bill, which gave banks and institutions muscle to recover bad debts. Retail banking is the new mantra for all the banks.…
