principles enjoin upon the supervisors and oversight bodies to ensure an equitable and fair treatment of consumers, disclosure and transparency in product and service offerings along with promotion of financial education and awareness amongst the consumers. in this context, i would like to highlight some important aspects of consumer protection and risk management that banks need to imbibe in their business processes : bis central bankers ’ speeches • pricing of asset and liability products should be transparent and non - discriminatory. at a minimum, it must be ensured that poor do not subsidize the provision of banking services to the rich. • the business operations of banks should be customer - centric in nature. this should be reflected in all aspects of banking operations including creation of customized products and services, pricing of services, delivery channels, etc. banks should, inherently, be flexible in their operations so that they have the ability to meet the evolving stakeholder expectations. • banks should be able to appreciate the risk - return trade - off involved in various activities. the basic premise that greater return would invariably come from assumption of higher risk, needs to be appreciated and disseminated, both within the organization and to banks ’ customers. banks need to develop the ability to discern good risk from bad so that they selectively take on only those risks that are in alignment with the bank ’ s long term strategic vision. • the culture of efficient risk management needs to be imbibed in the organization ’ s ethos so that everyone from the top management to frontline managers in the field shares a common vision of risk management. a key related issue is the integrity of mis in banks. each bank claims to be oriented towards its customers. but, i have a simple poser. are the banks aware of the number of customers they have? i am not referring to the number of accounts but the actual number of customers that the bank serves across all business verticals by offering different products. moreover, most of the banks do not have a system of working out activity wise costs and returns. unless banks know the return on each and every product, they cannot arrive at a truly risk based pricing. c ) impaired assets another issue which is generating considerable concern and is likely to impact banks ’ ability to serve its stakeholders is the rising portfolio of non - performing assets ( npas ) and restructured loans. while the downturn in business environment globally and in india has contributed to this rise, we need to reflect on why our risk management practices during boom time

##roes of despair at the beginning of the decade of the 90s to a period of heady growth and further, to the present, when we are facing multiple challenges. the book deftly captures several major landmark events / developments in the banking sector with the perspective of the point of time when these articles were actually written. it is noteworthy that apart from india, shri venugopal has also extensively covered the economic developments in china in his articles. shri venugopal has made a strong pitch for economic cooperation between the two major asian markets naming china as the market of the future and stating that india should seek to get its due share of this market. it is actually a tribute to the vision of the man, as he has intensively focussed on two economies that have, since, seen a lot of economic prosperity and have become the cynosure of all in the global market place. as the indian economy battles challenges on multiple fronts, shri venugopal ’ s articles could provide valuable insights into these challenges and provide guidance for overcoming them. the indian banking system has seen a complete transformation during the last two decades, in sync with the progress made by the real economy. almost every aspect of banking operation has seen significant change during this period as banks sought to reinvent themselves in an attempt to retain their preeminent position in the financial system. the period saw banks moving beyond brick and mortar branches to adopt innovative delivery channels including internet banking, atms, call centres, kiosks, business correspondents ( bcs ), etc. new products such as retail banking gained prominence. banks have sought to grow, not just in terms of balance sheet size, but also in terms of greater penetration of banking services to the hitherto unbanked segments of the population. it is reasonable to say that banks have succeeded in rising up to the challenges posed by the unique needs of a bis central bankers ’ speeches transforming economy and have, in no small measure, contributed to the nation ’ s economic progress during this period. the growth of the banking system and its pivotal position in the country ’ s financial architecture implies that the banks cater to a whole host of diverse stakeholders who have equally diverse expectations. the success of individual banks and of the banking system as a whole depends on how well these stakeholder expectations are met. some of the problems currently facing the banking industry bear their genesis to banks ’ inability to align their business operations with stakeholder expectations. in view of the considerable debate (