The Department of Finance and Accounting, ICFAI Business School, Hyderabad a constituent of ICFAI Foundation for Higher Education, is conducting the 15th edition of its 3-day flagship International Conference on Business and Finance (ICBF’2022) during 27-29 January 2022 in virtual mode.
Dr. Ashima Goyal, Member of Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), RBI, and Professor Emeritus at IGIDR, delivered the keynote address and decoded the puzzle of the surprising recovery of the financial sector and to an extent the economy too. She opined that in the environment of a facilitating monetary policy, it was the non-bank financing that fuelled the economy more than expected. She suggested that the forecasting models of rating agencies and professionals need to include the increasing diversity of financial sector in India and should identify the changing growth engines of the economy.
On the banking sector, Dr. Ashima Goyal clarified that in 2021 the NPAs and CRAR were better than, as expected in 2019, as there was overall efficiency in collection and recoveries. While expressing concern that the credit growth is still in single digits and large corporates were deleveraging, she pointed out that the credit was being channelized into the Medium, SME and consumer durable sectors, and the government’s credit warranties for SMEs have played a significant role.
Dr. Ashima highlighted inspite of Indian Government’s increased borrowing, the country’s debt to GDP ratio is very low compared to other emerging countries. There is lot of scope for both public and private leverage and AI based, and cashflow based lending models of Fintech could help in this regard. Elaborating on the rebounding stock markets, she opined that the retail investors have confidently entered the markets, and such diversity would bring in more stability, yet one should be wary of the imminent risks. She stressed the need for intelligent regulatory environment, strict KYC and AI based supervision on the financial sector.
Clarifying on the need for a temporary facilitating monetary policy, Dr. Ashima said that India needed such a policy to remove the supply side bottlenecks, which would eventually reduce unwarranted inflation and promote growth. However, there is need for a strong monetary and fiscal policy coordination. She ended on a very hopeful note that Indian economy is inherently resilient, with relatively young workforce, and all the pent up demand of the pandemic years has started expressing itself. She exhorted that Indian economy is now poised for a virtuous growth cycle and the feasible reforms should continue, with supply side improvement, and any large policy shocks should be avoided.
Prof. Mahender Reddy, Vice Chancellor, ICFAI Foundation for Higher Education, during his presidential address, urged the research community at large to deliberate on the emerging challenges of the convergence of technology and finance, the increasing awareness on sustainability and its reporting, and the valuations and future of unicorn startups.
Theme of the Conference and Paper presentation:
ICBF’2022 with the broad theme “Contemporary and Future Trends in Business and Finance”, received 196 papers from academicians and research scholars from 9 foreign Universities, central level institutes like IIMs, IITs, and other B-Schools in India, out of which 114 papers were accepted, to be presented in 26 tracks in the conference. The three-day conference, besides providing a platform for academicians, practitioners, and research scholars to present their ideas, has also lined up talks by eminent national and international academicians on contemporary issues of research in finance. ICBF’2022 awards cash prizes, to three best research papers, one best thesis, and one best case, that are presented in the conference. Apart from this, other high quality papers have opportunities to publish in ABDC, Scopus, and UGC Care ranked journals. ICBF’2022 is sponsored by Punjab National Bank, McGraw Hill Publishers, HDFC Bank, and Kotak Mahindra Bank.
Valedictory Session:
The valedictory session will be held on 29th of January where Shri Ashish Kumar Chauhan, the MD and CEO of BSE (The Bombay stock Exchange) will be the chief guest.
