C rporate Banking Transformation Banking Frontiers organized a roundtable at the Sahara Star Hotel in Mumbai on 11 June 2009 on the topic 'Corporate B

Manoj: We have terms like nano seconds nowadays and that is part of business language and not just technology language. Given the economic scenario in the competition, corporates wants things faster and faster. So, how are bankers accelerating corporate banking services?
Vipul Acharya: Today MNC banks give a lot of technological advantage to the corporates, and hence most of the corporate big houses are with MNC banks. But now Indian banks are also competing with them· in terms of service and pricing. People banking is slowly shifting to electronic medium. India is evolVing and I think we will not have clearing system any more and everything will be done through electronic banking only. In 3 to 4 years, all the banks will have ERr integration. So once a company goes for ERr integration with one bank, it is very difficult to move that customer from one bank to another bank.
Vispi: The move is in the right direction. In the days to come, we see payments to be the driver as far as cash management or transaction banking business is concerned. In two years time, all-India clearing will get centralized or it will get divided into four zones only. With just cheque truncation and speed clearing taking shape, we see collection as a dying product two years down the line. It's all going to end up with payments and the banks who get integrated with corporate ERr are going to create a stickiness because this is one business which is highly sticky - no customer wants to move out for a small advantage unless you are able to offer something that is mind-boggling and going to make his life very different from what it is today. The other thing that we see emerging these days among large corporates is the shared service centre concept, where the corporates are trying to centralize the receivables, payments and collections - all this at the group level.
Rajamani: You will see that most of the organizations inIndia are ITenablingthemselves through ERr deployment. What they are looking forward is how much they can connect themselves with the external world, particularly with financial institutions. Right now banks are their daily life and they cannot survive without the banking industry, so they see lot of value in decreasing the cycle ti me of various transactions. With RTGS and NEFT in place, they see lot of value in automation of transactions and that really brings the question of how do we establish the last mile connectivity between the corporate and