Indian Banking Conference
- Economic and Social Responsibilities of Indian Commercial Banks: Is There a Healthy Compromise?

These are exciting times for the Indian banking sector. It is growing rapidly, with even better future prospects. Some of these opportunities are likely to be global in scope. Several Indian banks are developing global strategies and, at the same time, many global banks are paying ever more attention to India. In about a year, foreign banks are expected to be able to acquire greater stake in private sector banks.

Are the Indian banks equipped to exploit the new opportunities and deal with the new challenges optimally? Have they developed and adopted the best competitive practices and standards in key areas: retail banking, corporate banking, personal financial services, treasury management, and customer satisfaction? How do their practices and performance compare with the best global banks? On the other side of the coin, banks have a key role to play in the socio-economic development of the country. Today, a significant fraction of the Indian population remains excluded from basic banking services. SMEs complain of credit shortfall. The rural credit situation needs improvement. Clearly, the unprecedented opportunities for the banking sector with the attendant domestic and global competitive pressures on the one hand, and unfulfilled national priorities on the other, make for a complex scenario.

Are there ways for the Indian commercial banks to achieve both objectives: performance and social responsibility? This is a question of far-reaching consequence for all concerned constituencies: academic researchers who research the banking industry, the bankers who manage and run the different segments of the industry, including private, public sector and foreign banks, and the regulators and policy-makers who set the rules and boundaries of the industry.

This Conference offers a public platform for the leaders in each of the three constituencies to examine this question. It consists of two panel discussions and a special address.

For more information on the conference, please visit: http://www.isb.edu/Bankingconference/index.shtml


Financial Engineering
The Indian School of Business (ISB), and the University of California, Los Angeles, Anderson School of Management, (UCLA Anderson), have collaborated to launch a six-week programme in financial engineering in July this year at the ISB. For more information, please visit: http://www.isb.edu/cee/EventMgmt.aspx?topicID=93


Summer Research Conference 2008 in Finance
The Centre for Analytical Finance (CAF) at the Indian School of Business (ISB), will host the Summer Research Conference 2008 in Finance during August 7 - 10, 2008. The Conference will start with a reception for the participants on the evening of August 7. Paper presentations and discussions will take place on the following three days. The Conference will take place in the Academic Centre on the ISB campus in Hyderabad, India.

The theme of the Conference is Recent Advances in Corporate Finance. Papers in all areas of corporate finance are welcome, including corporate financing and agency costs, corporate investment decisions and real options, corporate finance and product markets, control rights and corporate governance, mergers and acquisitions, institutional and legal framework of financing decisions, behavioural implications, and corporate financing in emerging markets. Theoretical as well as empirical papers will be considered. Papers with a focus on new ideas and concepts, or cutting-edge tools and techniques of analysis, will be preferred.

Apart from the ISB faculty, the conference programme committee will include a roster of top researchers in corporate finance based in Asia, Europe, and North America. There will be a USD 5,000 award generously funded by Citigroup for the best paper presented at the Conference. CAF organises two research conferences each year: one in the spring (April) and the other in the summer (August). The first conference is organised jointly with Wharton Financial Institutions Centre and Swedish Institute for Financial Research, and rotates between Hyderabad, Philadelphia, and Stockholm. Well-known finance scholars from around the world have participated in our research conferences.

This procedure resulted in high-quality programmes for our past conferences. To view the programme schedule and the papers presented at our previous conferences, please visit the CAF website at http://www.isb.edu/caf/

For more information on the conference, please visit: http://www.isb.edu/financeconference2008/index.shtml