Dear Member,

Season’s greetings and a Happy New Year to you all.

Let us hope and pray that the New Year 2017 ushers in lots of happiness and joy to all.

As the year 2016 draws to an end, I take this opportunity to share with you, through this column, updates, events, developments that have taken place in your Institute during the last quarter.

Sir Purushottamdas Thakurdas Memorial Lecture

Your Institute organized the 33rd Sir Purushottamdas Thakurdas Memorial Lecture – 2016 on 24th November 2016 at Mumbai. The lecture on a very contemporary topic "Pioneering Best Practices in Banking: India’s Record” was delivered by Mr. R. Gandhi, Deputy Governor, Reserve Bank of India. The lecture was attended by a large number of officials from the banking industry. The speech has been uploaded on our website. The link to the same is given below for your convenience.

http://iibf.org.in/documents/PTML%20Lecture%20-2016.pdf

Meeting with the heads of HR/Training Verticals

Your Institute organised a meeting of HR and Training Heads of Banks/Financial Institutions jointly with NIBM and IDRBT at Mumbai. The meeting was held on 9th December 2016, at the Leadership Centre of the Institute at Mumbai. Senior functionaries from various public sector, private sector and financial institutions attended the meeting. Very useful deliberations took place in the meeting and we have carefully noted down all the suggestions for further review and implementation; wherever feasible.

Capacity Building

RBI vide its notification dated 11 th August 2016 has mandated that each bank should have board approval policy to deploy staff with adequate qualification/certification in key areas of operation. To begin with, they have identified following areas:

1. Treasury Management: Dealers, mid-office operations.
2. Risk Management: credit risk, market risk, operational risk, enterprise-wide risk, information security, liquidity risk.
3. Accounting – Preparation of financial results, audit function
4. Credit Management: credit appraisal, rating, monitoring, credit administration

I have pleasure in informing you that your Institute is already in this space and is offering courses namely, Treasury Management, Risk Management and Credit Management for developing professionals in the important areas of banking. I sincerely urge upon all the eligible staff to enrol for these certifications so as to enable you to understand the finer aspects of the subjects and also perform better in your workplace.

Collaboration

Your Institute has signed a MoU with Afghanistan Institute of Banking & Finance for carrying out training programs for their bankers at various managerial levels.

Training

The training department of the Institute conducts various training programmes catering to the training requirements of banks and Financial Institutions. During the last quarter, programs for Bank Executives, Certified Credit officer, Certified Banking Compliance professional, Certified Bank Trainer and a program on Digital Banking were conducted.

Research activities

Your 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 advertisement, requesting submission of proposals on the topics under Macro and Micro Research, has been placed on our website, Facebook page and Economic & Political weekly website (www.epw.in). The last date for submission of Micro/Macro proposals is 31 st January 2017 and that for DJCHBBORF is 28 2 th February 2017. I would urge upon the members to participate in the research activities of the Institute.

Advanced Management Programme – Management Development Programme by IIM
(Calcutta)

The Institute conducts an "Advanced Management Programme" (AMP) in Banking & Finance for working executives from the Banking / Financial sector. This is an eight month long week-end programme. This year, as part of AMP, a 5 day (30 hours) "Management Development Programme" (MDP) in General Management was conducted by Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta at their campus.

Certificate Course in Project Finance

Your Institute conducted its 25 th batch of Certificate course in Project Finance from 21

November to 26 th November 2016. The programme is targeted to Banking & Finance professionals, officials working in banks/financial institutions/NBFCs who are involved in st appraising large & medium projects, both industrial and infrastructural. The objectives of the course were to:
  ●   Equip bankers with advanced skills in the field of project appraisal, financing, etc. and familiarise them with basic issues arising in financing projects, as well as risk analysis and risk mitigation methodologies with a specific emphasis on structured financing.

Examinations

Apart from the flagship courses, the Institute has been offering a bouquet of Diploma, Certificate and Blended courses. These courses have been designed after considering their contemporariness, eliciting feedback from stakeholders and after obtaining suitable approvals. While the enrolments for the flagship courses are quite significant, the number of candidates enrolling for the other courses is relatively low. I would therefore urge all the eligible members to enrol for these examinations as part of their continuous professional development. In fact, the courses on AML/KYC, Customer Service are very relevant to all the front level staff of the banks. To help our members, the Institute has increased the frequency of above two examinations to quarterly intervals from April 2016 onwards.

Postponement of Nov/Dec16 examinations

Your Institute had taken a proactive decision to postpone the JAIIB/ CAIIB exams which were to be held in November / December 2016 in view of the demonetization measures announcement by the Government of India and increased work pressure in Banks. The revised dates have been announced. Candidates are requested to take note of the same. However the Diploma and Certificate examinations scheduled from January 2017 onwards will be held as per schedule.

Syllabus Revision Committee

The Institute had appointed a Syllabus Revision Committee headed by a former CMD of a public sector bank to suggest changes in the syllabi of all the Diploma and Certificate courses offered by the Institute. The recommendations of the Committee have been accepted by the Institute and consequently, the coursewares for the courses have been updated and the updated books will be available in the market latest by mid-January 2017. The new syllabi for the Diploma and Certificate courses will be made applicable from the May - July 2017 examinations.

Video- Guidelines for examinations

The Institute has uploaded on its web site a video giving step by step details relating to examinations. The same can also be viewed on the Institute’s YouTube channel. The official channel can be reached by clicking on the YouTube logo available on the website. Members, who are appearing for the examinations conducted by the Institute, are requested to see the video for a better appreciation of the steps required for appearing for the examinations.

Mock Test

Mock tests provide a feel of the MCQ pattern of the examination. The Institute has been administering mock test for all the 3 papers of JAIIB/ DB & F and 2 compulsory papers for CAIIB. I urge upon the members to utilise this facility.

E-Learning

One of the pedagogical tools offered by the Institute is e-learning. The Institute has taken up the assignment of updating the e-learning contents developed for its Flagship courses namely JAIIB and CAIIB (compulsory subjects).

Mobile Apps

Your Institute’s mobile application is available on Google Play Store for download. After downloading the application, the user needs to provide basic information to get started (Member name, e-mail and mobile number). Using this application, a candidate/member will be able get information about the Institute, Membership, Examinations, Training and Books & Periodicals etc. You may download the Institute's Mobile App and avail this service. As on December 2016, there are about 11,000 plus downloads.

Social Media

I am happy to state here that the Institute has reached 34,000 plus likes on its face book page and close to 350 subscribers for its YouTube channel as on December 2016. This shows the interest of the members on the Institute’s Face book page. The types of post appearing on the page includes Notifications from the Institute, RBI notifications, Banking Glossary, Opinion Polls related to Banking and Finance, Quote of the Day, Season Greetings, Informing training programs and many more. The videos of the various events of the Institute like seminars, R K Talwar Memorial Lectures, PTM lectures, panel discussions and interviews of eminent bankers are uploaded on the Institute’s YouTube channel. I would urge upon the members to visit the page which will help them in increasing their knowledge and will give them a better insight on Institute’s activities. This will also be a good touch point for the members with the Institute.

New Certifications

The Institute has introduced a course on "Digital Banking" and another course for the Subordinate staff of banks from January 2017. The first exams for these courses will be held in Jan 2017.

Bank Quest

The Institute publishes a quarterly journal Bank Quest. The issue for October – December 2016 is on "Digital Banking" The forthcoming issues will be based on the following themes.
  ●   January-March, 2017: Business Analytics
  ●   April-June, 2017: Challenges in Infrastructure financing
I request members to contribute articles on above themes for publication in Bank Quest. The Institute has enhanced the honorarium payable to the authors for contributing articles in our journal.

IIBF Vision

As part of green initiative, the Institute has discontinued sending the hard copies of the IIBF Vision with effect from October-2015 to its members. In case, you have not registered your email 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.

Best wishes.

Dr. J. N. Misra

29 th December 2016