Retail or Corporate?

That was the question that vexed many an eminent panelist who congregated onto our hallowed campus to debate the issue in the post lunch session of our first ever 'Annual' Banking Symposium.

Well for starters we wore our suits/blazers for the first time on campus. Formal wear for the winters we were told. Unfortunately some a***hole decided not to turn on the air conditioning inside the packed and sealed (may I add) auditorium. So there were we all dressed and cooking inside our 'formal wear'.

The roll calling done (its a tradition to be followed... who cares a damn whether you are interested in the proceedings or not!!!) the panelists were escorted to the dias. I must say that the organising committee did a great job on the celeb front. We had the whos-who and the whos-going -to-be-next-who of the financial world. The keynote speaker was the Dy. Gov. of the RBI. (Forgot her name...forgive me!!!) and the rest of the guys were senior bankers/VPs/diros of firms like Ernst & Young, ICICI Bank, SBI, Yes Bank, StanChart, Amex, Citigroup, NCDEX, etc etc.

The entire thing would have been another also ran thingie at MDI had it not been for the sardar from SBI who livened up things at the fag end of the session. He rocked the place with his sharp wit, humour, sarcasm and hilarious stories. The other guys did a marketing job of their resp. cos and the ICICI bank dood did a typical MBA style presentation with lotsa data and the ubiquitous 'sa pa da pa'

So finally the conclusion... we need a balance of both COrporate and Retail banking... knew that was coming right!!! its a typical MBA answer politically correct and vague as hell... sardar dood was bang on target when he said that retail banking depends a lot on corporate banking. If firms borrow and grow, the returns flow towards the household sector who in turn then can drive retail banking. Way to go paaji... you probably said everything that had to be said in short sentences, in succint language and served with doses of common sense that probably they dont teach at BSchool