Mr. Dipak Gupta, Kotak Mahindra Bank Limited Interacts with JBIMS Mumbai Students

Mr. Dipak Gupta, Kotak Mahindra Bank Limited Interacts with JBIMS Mumbai Students

In it's continuous endeavour to augment classroom knowledge with industry perspective, Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies hosted Mr. Dipak Gupta for an interactive session. Mr. Dipak Gupta holds a PGDM from IIM, and currently serves as the Head of retail business and banking operations at Kotak Mahindra Bank Limited (formerly, Kotak Mahindra Finance Limited) and has over 17 years experience in the financial services sector.

He was responsible for leading the Group's initiatives into the banking arena. The guest lecture for the day was to cover the Indian debt and insurance markets.

The session began by Mr. Gupta briefly touching upon the current situation in the financial markets. Mr. Gupta explained that the markets were in a state of flux and took the students through some of the drastic changes that had taken place in the financial markets; changes which made it seem like a new financial world every three months. Using the Black Swan theory, he brought out the importance of such changes of great magnitude and consequence and their dominant role in history. Such events have a low probability but have a manifold impact. He stressed that many such events were still hidden and the associated risks yet to be ascertained. Excessive leveraging as a culprit for the collapse of banks, the stimulus plans and their possible effect on inflation, the US savings rate and its impact on developing economies were also covered in a free flowing discussion in which the students posed many questions. Moving on to the Insurance sector, Mr. Gupta brought out the intricacies of the various products that constitute the Insurance / Investment universe. He provided insights on the revenue earning capacities of both banks and insurers. The drivers as well as the broader outlook for the sector were discussed during the session.

The Indian debt market was next on the agenda. After outlining its structure and touching upon the various platforms for trading, Mr. Gupta took up the various issues involved in trading in the Indian markets. Liquidity issues and risks due to the mismatch of the tenures of swapped liabilities are some of the bugbears for the traders. Though world-over hedging is resorted to reduce risk, the Indian debt market does not offer very effective hedging products. Most of the offerings are short term which does not afford the participant enough time to take a meaningful view on interest rates. Seeing the interest of the students, Mr. Gupta proceeded to outline some of the various strategies involved in investing in debt securities. He also brought out the fact that information imbalance can be a major source of revenue for banks.

The session was extremely informative with the batch gaining an in-depth understanding of both the insurance and the debt markets, that too from a Titan in the Indian arena.

Concluded.

* Contributed by -
The Corporate Relations Committee,
Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies, Mumbai.

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