The bankers say it increases the challenge to retain the badge every year, the number crunchers say it is the rigor of selection that makes it impeccable. Within a decade, the Fe India?s Best Banks Awards have managed to earn the most intangible commodity for an award?the respect for its fairness and the ability to reward banks that look ahead.
Shikha Sharma, managing director and CEO of Axis Bank, also articulated this position. ?Of course this is a big public recognition for us. We take it as a challenge to retain the responsibility of a leader in the future??. Axis Bank will get the award this year as the winner among the new private sector banks at the awards? night.
Neeraj Swaroop, CEO, Standard Chartered bank, India & South Asia, was equally sure what he felt about the award. ?The award, which is an affirmation of our bank?s achievements in India over the past 151 years, means a lot to us coming from the prestigious Indian Express Group. The bank is honoured to be recognised with the Fe India?s Best Banks Awards.?? Standard Chartered has won the award for the best score on profitability among all banks.
To understand the way the award winners are selected, we turned to Viren Mehta, director, Ernst &Young, India, FE?s knowledge partner in choosing the list of winners across 13 categories. Mehta and his team had put in the months of number crunching that finally short listed the award winners.
?In all these years, we have tried to capture the transformation and evolving business in our number-crunching exercise?, says Mehta. All banks, irrespective of their ownership, compete in the same market place and are faced with the same situation, he adds. ?We have therefore emphasised on the efficiency, quality and productivity of the institutions we evaluated. Whatever the banks do should be reflected in their numbers, which will ultimately add to the valuation exercise.?
So what goes into the numbers game? A lot actually! To pick the best among the banks in different categories, including products, acquiring of customers or creation of suitable technology platforms, the banks are evaluated across comparable standards. To this is added the branding exercise the banks put in and so on.
The task is made difficult as the field of the Indian banking industry is changing very fast. As liberalisation has progressed, the financial sector in India has transformed radically and this transformation is reflected in the entire exercise.
To ensure for instance that banks with limited presence and extremely low assets do not distort the effort, the Ernst & Young team crossed out entities with less than five branches either during 2006-07 or 2007-08 or total assets of less than Rs 5,000 crore, to make the playing field level.
The awards therefore not just honour the winners, but also tell what responsible and forward looking leadership can do for the banks.
In a year of global banking crisis, the banking teams that stuck to their job responsibly have, more often than not, emerged the winners.
MS Sundara Rajan, chairman & managing director of Indian Bank told Fe, ?It is a dream come true. There were moments in the past where people were thinking whether the bank would survive or not.
Government reposed its confidence and infused capital. In 2006-07 the bank was the second best bank and in 2007-08 it is the best bank. The award gives that extra responsibility. We now have to meet the aspiration of our owner as well as customers, (emanating from the award).?
Indian bank will pick up the award at Fe Best Banks as the number one among the public sector banks.
The last word on the value addition from the Fe Best Banks award came from M Narendra, executive director, Bank of India. ?This award will further help increase our brand recognition as well as increase of our market share, which is currently pegged at 5% each in credit and deposit. We dedicate this award to our 40,000 staff for their hard work and unstinted support for our 3-crore customers.? Bank of India will take home the second prize for being the best among the public sector banks.