Foriegn bank CEOs come together

BS reports

India CEOs of 12 banks form pressure group within IBA.

To make sure their voice is not lost in the corridors of power, the India CEOs of 12 banks have formed a pressure group within the Indian Banks’ Association (IBA).

The group had its first meeting today and will henceforth meet once every quarter.

Sanjay Nayar, CEO of Citigroup in India, is the chairman of this standing committee of foreign sector banks.

The other banks in the group are HSBC, Standard Chartered, Deutsche Bank, BNP Paribas, ABN Amro, Bank of America, American Express, DBS Bank, JP Morgan, Barclays, and Calyon.

On the agenda for today’s meeting were the recent draft guidelines issued by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on non-banking finance companies (NBFCs) and priority sector lending, among other issues, banking sources said.

Fine, they have come together to lobby against unfair regulations. But, let's also remember Adam Smith: "People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. It is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty and justice. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies; much less to render them necessary."