k c chakrabarty : talent acquisition and management keynote address by dr k c chakrabarty, deputy governor of the reserve bank of india, at seminar on talent acquisition and management organized by the ibps, mumbai, 31 may 2011. * * * the assistance provided by shri shailendra trivedi in preparation of this address is gratefully acknowledged. 1. shri m. balachandran, director, ibps, shri k. ramakrishnan, ceo, iba, members of governing board of the ibps, faculty members of ibps, my old friends and colleagues, mr. saurabh tripathi of bcg who made an excellent presentation, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen. it is a pleasure and privilege to be here at the seminar on talent acquisition and management organized by the ibps. the seminar has very interesting objectives in that it attempts to review and evolve systems and tools for identification of talent for induction from outside and from within for recruitment, promotions and placements – in the context of changing needs of the banking industry. 2. it is only apt for ibps to be holding this seminar. after all, the core job of ibps is talent acquisition through selection of competent and efficient cadres of personnel, their promotions and placement etc. the institute has made good progress in doing its job. it has moved from a total of 8 lakh registered candidates in 2001 – 02 to screening about 13 million candidates in 2010 – 11. the progress and professionalism is indeed, commendable and i take this opportunity to congratulate shri balachandran, the ibps governing board and their entire team. 3. though i do not have professional hr qualifications, i do consider myself an hr person although i see things in a slightly different perspective. i believe hr cannot be a departmental function ; hr cannot be an individual function. human resource development has to be a movement in any society if we have to upgrade the knowledge and skill level in a society, which is very much required in our country. 4. having said that, let me return to the theme of this seminar. the topic assumes great importance considering the fact that the banks in india today are faced with major challenges on the talent front. currently our banks employ close to ten lakh people ( 9. 44 lakh ). of these, around 7. 5 lakh people are employed by the public sector banks. mr. balachandran estimates that banks will have to recruit about 7.

whether the economy is fit enough to deal with it. 3. is the corporate sector reliant on these stretched valuations? there is better news in this regard. despite recent headline examples of indebted companies, britain is among a small group of major economies not to have seen overall corporate debt increase as a share of gdp over the past decade. within that, amongst companies investing in commercial property, debt levels are well below pre - crisis levels and have remained static for four years. rising property prices have been financed with more equity, not debt. this was comprehensively covered in a recent speech by jan vlieghe. see vlieghe, g ( 2017 ), ‘ real interest rates and risk ’ ; all speeches are available online at www. bankofengland. co. uk / speeches stretched asset prices have not been matched with less prudent financing. but developments in the world economy show that we cannot take for granted that it will stay that way. the imf global financial stability report showed how, across the g20, appetite of investors for risk has loosened financing conditions and propelled nonfinancial corporate debt levels to new highs. even excluding china ( where corporate debt developments deserve much more attention than i can give them here ), between 2006 and 2016 emerging market economies in the g20 saw corporate debt increase from 42 % to 57 % of gdp, and advanced economies saw it go from 80 % to 86 % of gdp. in the united states, levels of ( non - financial ) corporate sector debt have been testing previous highs. moreover, averages can mask important underlying shifts. leveraged lending in the us reached new highs last year. net debt to ebitda ratios have been trending upwards in recent years and underwriting standards have been loosening. three quarters of issuance is now ‘ covenant - lite ’. all this goes to show that it ’ s more than a hypothetical that levels of corporate debt can come to rely on stretched credit markets and investors ’ lack of concern for their own safety. and despite the good starting point, there are some quiet signals of the need to be alert in the uk. the level of debt relative to corporate profits has started slowly rising again. the evolution of corporate debt levels will bear close scrutiny in this market environment. 4. is the banking system exposed to an adjustment of asset prices? the answer here is given by our stress test last year : britain ’ s major banks are resilient to an economic