Banking

To start with, unlike any other manufacturing or service company, a bank’s accounts are presented in a different manner (as per banking regulations). The analysis of a bank account differs significantly from any other company. The key operating and financial ratios, which one would normally evaluate before investing in company, may not hold true for a bank (like say operating margins).




Prospect:
· Retail lending (especially mortgage financing) that formed a significant portion of the portfolio for most banks in the last two years lost some weightage on the banks’ portfolios due to their risk weightage. However, on the liabilities side, with better penetration in the semi urban and rural areas the banks garnered a higher proportion of low cost deposits thereby economizing on the cost of funds.

· Apart from streamlining their processes through technology initiatives such as ATMs, telephone banking, online banking and web based products, banks also resorted to cross selling of financial products such as credit cards, mutual funds and insurance policies to augment their fee based income.