Dear Member,

You may be aware that the 88^th Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the Institute was held on 24^th August 2015 in Mumbai. The AGM was well attended by different stakeholders. I am happy to inform that the Institute has continued to perform well on all fronts.

The Institute has always followed an innovative approach and has kept pace with the changes which are happening in the economy in general and in the banking and finance space in particular. Recognising that the social media has brought about a paradigm shift in the way banking operations are being conducted today and its phenomenal reach, the Institute has taken an important decision of making a foray in the social media space.

The Institute is now live on Facebook and YouTube. A formal launch was made on the day the AGM was conducted. I am happy that the Institute has made a good beginning by making its presence felt on Facebook & YouTube. This will enable the Institute to receive constructive inputs/feedback from its members.

Another initiative which the Institute will be announcing shortly is a mobile app which will enable candidates/ members and others access to information about IIBF, its courses, examinations etc. through the Mobile.

I would now like to share with you the following activities of the Institute.

Re-organisation

In order to meet the academic and training needs of the bankers across the country, the Institute has recently repositioned its zonal offices at Kolkata (Eastern), New Delhi (Northern) and Chennai (Southern) as Professional Development Centres and merged the western zonal office with the Corporate Office at Mumbai. Further, a separate Members Support Service Department has been created to attend to all queries related to members. I hope this new arrangement will ensure better service to the members. I urge upon members to make optimum use of the facilities at our zonal centres.

New course/examination

The Institute has recently introduced a new certificate examination for Subordinate Staff of Banks and the courseware for this examination "Banking-An Introduction" was launched on the AGM day.

Foundation Day

For the first time, the Institute celebrated its Foundation Day on April 30, 2015. This function was combined with convocation and awarding of certificates to the successful candidates of the 3^rd Advanced Management Program (AMP) batch for 2014-15 in the Leadership Centre of the Institute. The 4^th batch of AMP started from July, 2015.

Financial Inclusion

The Institute has launched a Certificate Examination/Course for Business Correspondents under the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) scheme. The Institute has published a book “Inclusive Banking thro' Business Correspondent - A tool for PMJDY” and developed trainers’ hand book. In this regard, the Institute has conducted 23 Trainers’ Training Programme with the support of 18 SLBCs and trained 859 trainers across 23 states to equip them to conduct 3 days training of BCs. The Institute has been conducting the certificate examination for Business Correspondents (PMJDY) on monthly intervals. The Institute has so far conducted three online examinations and certified 4096 BCs under the scheme.

R. K. Talwar Memorial Lecture

The 6^th R. K. Talwar Memorial Lecture was organised by your Institute and the lecture was delivered by Dr. Arvind Panagaria, Vice Chairman, NITI Aayog, Government of India on 17^th July 2015 in Mumbai. The event was attended by Dr. Urjit Patel, Deputy Governor, RBI and many senior bankers. You may go through the text of the lecture and videos available on the Institute's website and on YouTube.

Member Education Seminar

Your Institute had organised a seminar on Customer Education, Awareness and Empowerment on 20^th March 2015 at Hyderabad in collaboration with BCSBI on 3 July 2015 at Guwahati in collaboration with Indian Institute of Bank Management (IIBM). The response of member banks to the seminars was quite encouraging and many bankers have attended and benefited from it. Your Institute has planned a seminar on Risk Management and Compliance in Indian Banks on 4^th September, 2015 at the Leadership Center, IIBF, Mumbai. You are welcome to attend the seminar.

IGNOU-IIBF Endowment Chair

Earlier, the Institute had established an Endowment Chair at the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU). In April, 2015, the Institute has renewed the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with IGNOU. Members are encouraged to take up the CAIIB linked MBA through IGNOU.

IIBF Chair at NIBM

The Institute has set up an IIBF Chair for Banking Research and Competency Mapping at National Institute of Bank Management (NIBM), Pune and Dr.Badrinarayan Pawar has been appointed as IIBF Chair Professor to work on "Competency mapping".

Research activities

The Institute has been encouraging research activities through its three major initiatives viz. Macro Research, Micro Research and Diamond Jubilee and CH Bhabha Banking Overseas Research Fellowship (DJCHBBORF). The Institute had received 33 Macro Research proposals and out of which after detailed scrutiny, 3 researchers were selected for conducting Macro Research projects for the year 2014-15. In respect of Micro Research, the Institute had received 50 papers (as against 19 in the last year) for the year 2014-15 and after evaluation, the Institute awarded prizes to 5 bankers. The Institute also awarded one Diamond Jubilee and CH Bhabha Banking Overseas Research Fellowship (DJCHBBORF) for the year 2014-15 during the 88^th AGM.

IIBF Vision

As a part of green initiative, the Institute is contemplating to discontinue sending the hard copies of the IIBF Vision with effect from October-2015 to its members. In case you have not registered your e-mail id with the Institute, I request you to do so to enable the Institute to send copies of IIBF Vision by e-mail to you in future. You may also download issues of IIBF Vision and Bank Quest from the Institute’s website.

APABI-2015

The Institute will host the Asia Pacific Association of Banking Institutes (APABI) Conference for the year 2015 on 23^rd September 2015 in New Delhi. The theme for Conference is "New Paradigms in Banking". The Institute will release a Special Issue of Bank Quest during the Conference. The 32rd Sir PTML lecture will be organised on the day of the conference and Mr. Christopher Harvey, Managing Director & Global Industry Leader of Financial Services, Deloitte, Hong Kong has consented to deliver the lecture on the topic "The Future of Financial Services: How disruptive innovations are reshaping the way financial services are structured, provisioned and consumed".

Best wishes.