Jal Diwas celebrations in TAPMI

“Barren lands implore a pail…a drop to quench the thirst of yore

Parched souls await the petrichor

Wilted blossoms beseech beads of dew

Keels of lifeless sails seek the roar of the surf

Drought stricken paradise gasps for WATER, the nectar of life!”

What do we do to stop our injudicious use of the water resources?  How do we conserve water?

To do its bit, the Government of India has launched Jal Shakti Abhiyan.  AICTE approved institutions celebrate ‘Jal Diwas’ on 22^nd July with relevant events.   The students of TAPMI took part in competitions that aimed at spreading awareness and contemplating solutions for water conservation.

Professor Ishwar Haritas, Chairman – Center for Inclusive Growth and Competitiveness, the chief guest of the event addressed the student cohort.  He pointed out the water conservation measures that TAPMI practises in its premises.  Alternate use of bore-wells to let the groundwater recharge and recycling of bath water to be used in gardening are just to name a few, he elaborated.  He encouraged the students to take up the challenge of finding business possibilities in such crises situations.  Professor Haritas gave an example of Reckitt Benckiser’s hige investment in Swachh Bharat Abhiyan to elucidate the business point of view in sustainable ventures.

Student Activities Chairperson, Professor Amol Dhaigude impelled the students to actively participate in sustainability ventures.  Participation does half the job, he said.  He quoted the example of Paani foundation set up by the team of the TV series Satyamev Jayate to fight drought in rural Maharashtra.  He advised the cohort to take up such issues as business challenges.

Competitions Committee of TAPMI (CCT) conducted a debate competition.  Students debated about thought-provoking topics like – ‘Privatization of water supply’, ‘Should countries revise policies for water usage for unsustainable purposed?’ and ‘Who is responsible for the water crisis – Government or citizens?’.  Mr. Vijai Sreekumar and Ms. Pragati Nagpal were adjudged the winners.

Cultural Committee of TAPMI conducted poster making competition with the themes of ‘Earth without water’ and ‘An ocean of plastic’.  Mr. Dingari Tarun, Ms. Anindita Hazra and Ms. Palak Gupta were awarded certificates for their intriguing posters.  Ms. Poorva Gupta performed a mime act sending a strong message to the audience of the repercussions of careless use of water resources.

Literary and Media Committee (LiMe) of TAPMI conducted a poetry writing competition.  Students let their words matter and wrote stimulating poetry about conservation of water.  Mr. Parth Kushwana and Mr. Soham Banerjee were the winners of the competition.

As students of business and management, TAPMI cohort takes up the challenge of investing itself in the noble task of conservation and sustainability ventures for a better future of the humankind and of course for a better earth.

Bounded Rationality: “Introduction and Heuristics in Decision Making”, Professor Gerd Gigerenzer, Director, Max Planck Institute for Human Development; Director, Harding Center for Risk Literacy in Berlin

On the 9^th of January, T. A. Pai Management Institute was honoured to have Professor Gerd Gigerenzer, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development and Director of the Harding Center for Risk Literacy in Berlin to give a lecture on Bounded Rationality. His work is renowned globally and participants and students got to hear about his work directly from Prof. Gerd.

He said that if one looks into a book on rational decision-making, good decisions follow logic and their goal is to maximize utility. Although he says it is a beautiful theory, it does not truly capture the essence of how we make decisions. Prof. Gerd’s main objective is to dispel the darkness in which much of our decision theory is based on. Simple heuristics that make us smart because it gives us the basics, and alternatives to think while making a decision.

There are times when we do not know what the consequences of a decision will be. These uncertainties according to Prof. Gerd are mainly when the situation is regarding whom to trust, where to invest and whom to marry. When the consequences of our decision is unknown, rationality cannot be counted as a factor for decision-making. This is when heuristics is used to evaluate our decision making. Optimisation may be a very good model but it gives us the illusion of certainty, thus heuristics is not a second choice.

Prof. Gerd spoke about ecological intuition and toolbox method of thinking as a part of heuristics. He even introduced a concept called Hiatus Heuristics. These concepts and theories were broken down for our convenience and delivered with high simplicity. It was an enriching experience to be sitting in the audience and watch such complex ideas delivered so simply

 

 

FINOMENAL 2016: DAY 2:”CAREERS IN FRM”-Mr. Lalit Taneja, Regional Director, Global Association of Risk Professionals

In an interactive session with students Mr. Lalit Taneja, Regional Director, Global Association of  Risk Professionals gave the students insights about the various career prospects in the field of Financial Risk Management. The session started off with him telling the students about the key forces driving the demand for risk managers. Before 2008 financial crisis market was driven by sales then post the crisis operations took over and presently the focus has completely shifted to regulation. This demand is the result of many historical drivers some of which are globalisation and integration of markets, increased product complexity, technological advances, regulations and market crisis. Sovereign risk, commodity market volatility, increased focus on organizational risk are some of the factors that have recently further accelerated the demand for risk managers.

He further stated why people are increasingly shifting to jobs in the field of FRM. Financial Risk Management assesses an individual’s ability to measure and manage risk in a real-world environment. What sets FRM apart is reliability, maintenance, validity, and acceptance. In the recent years, new trends have been constantly emerging in FRM. Due to current issues like cyber risk, liquidity risk, and regulatory stress, FRM has become a prerequisite for every organisation. GARP plays an active role in monitoring the work of certified FMR practitioners.

As the session approached its end, he concluded by stating some of the latest trends shaping the role of risk management which includes regulations, technology, advanced analytics and the emergence of newly arrived risks such as model risk, cyber security risk, and contagious risk. With these emerging trends, companies are gearing up to tackle these risks. Organisations are imparting risk education to their employees and are encouraging them to learn by providing benefits like exam preparation leaves, study groups in office and in-house course instructor.

FINOMENAL 2016: Day 2: “Solving NPA Crisis”-Mr.Tamal Bandyopadhyay, Adviser, Strategy at Bandhan Bank Ltd, & Consulting Editor, Mint

Mr Tamal Bandyopadhyay started the lecture by explaining how the noise over NPA has become louder after Raghuram Rajan initiated Asset Quality Review. In response to which the banks started to announce huge provisions to deal with NPAs which led to huge losses.

If the bad loans include restructured loans and written off loans along with NPA, the percentage will be much higher i.e., if it is 9% now it will increase to 20%. Most of the public sector banks have high NPA and they blame the environment and economic eco-system for their current condition. But, private banks which co-exist in the same ecosystem have low NPA between 1-2% except for ICICI which has 4%.Public sector banks are inefficient in relative to private sector banks because they are culturally different. The employee selection process is not transparent and the talent pool is poor. Public sector bankers have little incentive to remain honest as the pay is low. Hence the sector fails to attract better talent pool.

Talking about the impact of NPA on banks, Mr Bandyopadhyay said that it will affect the health and profitability of the banks. The deposit and loan growth have come down to the lowest because banks are scared to give loans, which adversely affects the investment.

Mr Bandyopadhyay said that this can be solved through privatisation of public banks by letting the government control banks through holding companies. This will take the banks out of government wage structure and investigation agencies. But this is a politically sensitive issue as it might lead to the violation of Bank Regulations Act of India. Recently, the government launched Indradhanush, brought down its stake to 52% and provided huge capitalization to public sector banks.

Mr Bandyopadhyay concluded by stating that the surgical strikes on banks might have led to the death of few banks but it is a necessity and the positive part is that we are no more in denial and are finally recognising the problem.

Finomenal 2016: Day 2: Closing Ceremony

The Closing ceremony saw batch address by Prof Animesh Bahadur, Dean of Admissions, Mr. Harsh Upadhyay, Chief Guest, Prof Aditya Mohan Jadhav, BKFS- Area Chair & Convenor & Co-Convenor of Finance Forum, Ms. Shruthi Chander & Ms. Monica Veer.

Prof. Animesh Bahadur appreciated the events of FINOMENAL and explained how the events & guest lectures gave a glimpse of what the practitioners & veterans from the field of finance feel about this discipline. In his opinion, he felt that the events were fruitful and was positive that the students gained a lot from this 2 day event.

Mr. Harsh Upadhyay spoke about how the events must have given perspective to students who wish to make a career in finance and what it takes to be a finance professional. He also mentioned about how this must have been especially important for the BKFS students who are into a specialised finance program. He also mentioned about the importance of communication skills which will go a long way not only during placements but also in the corporate world.

Prof Aditya Jadhav spoke about how the Finance Forum has grown over the last 3 years. He applauded the efforts of the students, members of the various committees and the management for doing an excellent job for the event. He thanked Prof Animesh Bahadur, Ex-Director Prof RC Natarajan, Prof Seena Biju, Prof Madhu Veerraghavan, Prof Vidya, Alumni Relations Committee, Prof Surya Mahadevan & Mr Nayak & Mr Ananth Pai for taking care of all the organisational responsibilities.

The ceremony concluded with Ms. Shruthi Chander & Ms. Monica Veer expressing their thanks to all the participating teams for making the event such a success, Professors of TAPMI and the committees namely, the Student Council, Literary & Media Committee (LiMe), Welfare Committee, Alumni Relations Committee (ARC) & the Logistics Committee for their continuous support.

FINOMENAL 2016: Day 2: “Corporate Bond Market in India”- Mr. Atul Khadilkar, Member- India Management Committee and Head- Financial Institutions Group, South Asia (National Australia Bank)

Mr. Khadilkar started the lecture with discussing the usual financing options available to the corporates in India and where India stands in terms of the bond market in the global context.

A company starts with investing their own Equity in the business but there are other sources such as debts in the form of loans from banks and the bond market. Both the equity market and the debt market consists of a wide range of market participants. Drawing a comparison between loans and bonds, he explained how banks chose between loans and bonds. Loan in a bank is a bilateral arrangement and has its own risks and challenges attached to it, and is therefore no longer the most attractive source of income for them in today’s market. On the other hand, bonds are more standardized and liquid in nature. Unlike loans, bonds are also rated, which attracts a wide range of investor pool. So, bonds are better than loans in these aspects and therefore there is a need for the development of the bond market in India.

He also gave an overview of the Indian bond market in the global context, in comparison to some of the developed and developing economies like the US and Japan.

Talking about the creation of demand for bonds in the Indian market, he discussed why the country needs it in terms of infrastructure financing, GDP growth and the Government’s take on fiscal discipline. He also discussed the working of the RBI Working Group in the Indian financial market.

In the end, he concluded by discussing the various kinds of bonds avaiable to the investors today in the Indian market, how the bond market is evolving in the financial system and will bring about a sea change in the coming years for banks and corporates, not only in India but all over the world.

FINOMENAL 2016: DAY 1: “CCAR Stress Testing”-Bharat Gupta 2nd Vice President (Team Lead), Model Risk Management at Northern Trust Corporation

Mr. Bharat started interacting with the students by discussing the 2008 subprime crisis and how it affected the banking industry. He explained the entire phenomenon unfolded by taking examples of certain important banks involved. How the investors, banks, investment banks and the insurance companies in the US were involved in the crisis, which ultimately led to the collapse of the entire financial system.

Comprehensive Capital Analysis & Review (CCAR) is one such supervisory exercise that is being run by the Federal Reserve since 2010 after the sub-prime crisis as a stress test for American banks, in order to keep a check so that they maintain sufficient capital for liquidity. This was because the regulator felt that the banks had inadequate levels of capital planning and the estimation of Risk-Weighted Assets wasn’t proper. CCAR uses sophisticated financial models, which are linked to Macroeconomics to identify the losses that the loans of a bank can make and whether it has sufficient capital to take care of its liabilities in that situation. He also discussed the various banks in the US that have been a part of this CCAR exercise and how the system is becoming less risky because of it. He further explained, how models like the Pre-Provisioning Net Revenue (PPNR) are built by banks using macroeconomics in order to maintain capital under the CCAR regulation.
In the end, he spoke about the various opportunities that the area of CCAR holds for the students of management in the industry.

FINOMENAL 2016: DAY1: INAUGURATION CEREMONY

Finomenal 2016, the third edition by the Finance forum of T. A. Pai Management Institute hosted its inaugural ceremony on the 15th of October. The theme for this year is – Risks. Reforms. Regulations.

Anurag Krishna, the MOC for the event welcomed the guest which was followed by the invocation vandana to invoke blessings of the almighty. Prof Animesh Bahadur, Dean- Administration, welcomed the students and the guests sitting in the panel leading the guests to initiate the lamp lighting ceremony. He addressed the students and informed them about how the faculty and Bloomberg labs are making finance a sought subject of specialization.

Mr. Harsha Upadhyaya, Chief Investment Officer of Equity and Fund Manager at Kotak Mahindra Asset Management Company Limited graced the occasion as the Chief Guest. He introduced the topic by saying “Risks cannot be defined completely and that is what makes regulations difficult.” He explained that everything around is constantly evolving and changing and so are risks. One has to take adequate measures to protect oneself from all risks. With globalization, the risk is no more bounded by geographical boundaries. According to him, mutual funds in India have to follow regulations in the USA due to linkages in this era of globalization.

Mr. J. K. Vishwanath, Chief Credit Officer – Development Credit Bank Limited, was the keynote speaker at the event. In his opinion “tone at the top determines where one stands for in the organization.” This is important because it determines how the organization will run. He advised the students that one should learn from rules and exceptions. This is the only way to deal with risk while keeping up with reforms and regulations.

Mr. Joel Pannikot, Head of Asia-Pacific Strategy (Education), Bloomberg was also present at the inaugural ceremony. He foresees “returning of humanity to humans.” According to him, technology is growing so rapidly due to the need to reduce risks and errors. He feels that artificial intelligence will govern most future decision-making processes and we will be doing work that require the “human touch.”

The opening ceremony came to an end with Prof Madhuveer Raghavan, Area Chair – Finance thanking the guests for imparting valuable knowledge to the students. He encouraged the students to make the next two days eventful. With this, Finomenal 2016 started off in full swing, promising two very intellectually stimulating days.

FINOMENAL2016: DAY1: “Investment in Stock Markets”- Mr. Sumit Kumar Jain -Senior Vice President at ASK Wealth Advisors Pvt Ltd. and Mr. Ashwani Agarwall- Equity Analyst at Baroda Pioneer Mutual Fund

In an interactive session with the students, Mr. Sumit Kumar Jain, Senior Vice President at ASK Wealth Advisors Pvt Ltd. and Mr. Ashwani Agarwall,  Equity Analyst at Baroda Pioneer Mutual Fund shared with students their intriguing insights on investment and stock markets.

As it turns out Mr. Sumit  found his interest in the field of investing quite early in his life and started investing at the age of 11. The session started off with him asking the audience, how many of them actively invested and if not, what are the reasons behind it. Most of the audience responded by saying that it is the risk of losing money which prevents them from doing so. He then continued the session in this direction.

“The moment you expand your horizon there is no risk.” he said.

According to him, investing demands discipline and if you make sure that you persistently follow basic discipline you can rest assured you will surely get good returns. Today everyone is in a hurry to multiply their returns and it is in this haste that they lose discipline and the situation deteriorates.  He further added that people often fail to control their emotions while investing. People commonly perceive investment as wealth or risk management; rather, it is emotion management.

So, Risk is only existent in your mind. The only thing that matters is the time frame and security which you set before taking the risk. He further discussed with students a few things they should focus on while investing, which are Business, Management, and Quality. An investor should not be deceived by the growth of a company because all growth is not profitable growth. Although the company might be growing but we can’t overlook the cost at which it is growing. It is always wise to invest in a simple business with which people can easily relate to.

As the session approached its end, he encouraged the students to start reading books, especially those by famous philosophers. Business today has become all about predicting what the next person is thinking and then outsmarting him. Books give you the talent to do so. He concluded by saying

“Invest in something you understand. Don’t invest only because you see there is money. In this case,  you will not be able to sustain the conviction to stay.”

FINOMENAL 2016: TAPMI BLOOMBERG OLYMPIAD

Finomenal 2016, The Annual Finance Conclave of TAPMI flagged off today with the Bloomberg Olympiad, a challenging and stimulating competition among the Bloomberg champions of some of  the top B-Schools of India. This unique event is in collaboration with Bloomberg LP, to test the expertise of the champions on Bloomberg terminals. The event was conducted in the finance lab of TAPMI, a state-of-the-art lab made in association with Bloomberg India. Only a few B-Schools in India have such terminals and TAPMI’s finance lab is the largest in the country, currently with 16 Bloomberg terminals. This lab has helped our students to bridge the gap between theory and practice. It is being used extensively for training students to be well equipped using these terminals. The first day of the Olympiad witnessed Bloomberg champions from ten B-schools taking part and raising the level of the competition. Four rounds were conducted and four of the ten competing teams qualified for the final round which would be held on 15^th October, the second day of Finomenal 2016. The four teams that would be competing in the final round are from SIMS, TAPMI, NL DALMIA and GREAT LAKES. After witnessing such intense levels of competition on the first day it would be interesting to see who claims the winning title on the final day.