Panel to study working of old gen pvt banks

Chennai, Apr 1 (UNI) The Tamil Nadu Unit of the All India Bank Officers Confederation has constituted a seven-member Independent Study Group under the chairmanship of Mr T S Raghavan, Former Chairman and Managing Director, Indian Bank, to go into the working of old generation private banks and evolve a road map for their future.

In a statement here today, Confederation Secretary G Santhanam said the other members of the panel were Mr K R Shenoy, Former Chairman, Lakshmi Vilas Bank, Mr T M Venkatraman, Former Chairman, Dhanalakshmi Bank, Mr R Natarajan, Former Chairman, Tamil Nadu Mercantile Bank, Prof S Radhakrishnan, Former Professor of Institute for Financial Management Research, Prof K Ramachandran Nair, Retired Professor and Head of Department of Economics, Kerala University and Mr M Dharmarajan, Former Vice President, All India Private Sector Bank Officers Federation.

After the first wave of nationalisation of 14 banks in 1969, 27 private banks were taken over by the nationalised banks and one by the ICICI Bank.

In the wake of financial sector reforms, the old generation private banks had become vulnerable to takeover by new promoters.

In the process, the character of the institutions radically changed in as much as their business profile, clientele, priorities and ethics which have all been recast to suit the organisational philosophy of the new promoters.

In a couple of cases, the takeovers had not helped the banks to improve their efficiency. They became conduits for the promoters to siphon off the banks' resources to their own targeted beneficiaries, he claimed.

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