Banks operate on three parallel engines, Corporate Credit, Retail and MSME Credit, and Agricultural and Farm Credit, and each has its own rhythm, seasonality, and pressure points. Business in a bank does not move evenly through the year. It is shaped by financial-year timelines, festivals, monsoons, crop cycles, and customer behaviour. Yet, training programmes are often planned as if every month is the same. This gap between training calendars and business reality creates stress on staff, disrupts operations, and reduces the effectiveness of learning itself. The Reality at Branches and Field Offices When officers are deputed for long training programmes during peak business periods, the impact is immediate. Credit proposals get delayed, turnaround time increases, customer visits pile up, and the remaining staff struggle to cope with daily operations. Officers attending training are also under pressure. They are worried about pending files, farmer visits, and client meetings. In such...
The Trust Deficit and Initial Challenges A decade ago, India’s banking sector was navigating a profound trust deficit. Rising Non-Performing Assets (NPAs), weak balance sheets, lax monitoring, and a culture of “extend and pretend” had transformed banks from engines of economic growth into crisis-prone institutions. The problem was not merely bad loans; the deeper issue lay in the system’s delayed recognition of risk. Banks were often reactive rather than proactive, responding to risks only after they had manifested, and by then, remedial measures became difficult. A lack of transparency, accountability, and systematic risk assessment weakened financial stability and delayed policy interventions. It was in this environment that a transformative journey of reforms began — and it began in an extraordinary way. Leadership and the ‘Manthan’: The Starting Point of Reform In 2015 the Prime Minister convened a historic 3 day ls meeting at the National Institute of Bank Management (NIBM), Pune,...