What Impact of Globalization on Indian Financial Services Industry...

Reforms of the financial sedctor constitutes the most important component of India’s programme towards economic liberalization. The recent economic liberalization measures have opened the door to foreign competitors to enter into our domestic market. Deregulation in the form of elimination of exchange controls and interest rate ceilings have made the market more competitive. Innovation has become a must for survival.

Many of the providers and users of capital have changed their roles all over the world. Financial intermediaries have come out of their traditional approach and they are ready to assume more credit risks. As a consequence, many innovations have taken place in the global financial sector. Which have its own impact on the domestic sector also. The emergence of various financial institutions and regulatory bodies have transformed the financial services sector from being a conservative industry to a very dynamic one. In this process this sector is facing a number of challenges.

Growth in financial services (comprising banking, insurance, real estate and business services), after dipping to 5.6% in 2003-04 bounced back to 8.7% in 2004-05 and 10.9% in 2005-06. The momentum has been maintained with a growth of 11.1% in 2006-07.

Impressive progress in information technology (IT) and IT-enabled services, both rail and road traffic, and fast addition to existing stock of telephone connections, particularly mobiles, played a key role in such growth.

Because of Globalization, the financial services industry is in a period of transition. Market shifts, competition, and technological developments are ushering in unprecedented changes in the global financial services industry. Organizations in this highly competitive and increasingly regulated industry will especially need to focus on making themselves more:

Ø Adept to face increasing transaction volumes, regulation and the integration of previously disparate global markets

Ø Agile at identifying and managing risk

Ø Operationally efficient

Ø Customer – centric

Ø Optimized in both business & technology

In this scenario, spearheading IT initiatives has become critically important.

Major spending initiative priorities tend to focus on automation to reduce costs and lessen risk, along with using BPO to gain efficiency and allow internal IT organizations to focus on strategic initiatives. Delivery of these capabilities at a high efficiency level but at low costs is one of the major success factors for any financial services business.